


Keeping Up With The Cadashes (And Friends)

by TypingBosmer



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Kissing, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Dialogue Heavy, Disabled Character, Drabble Collection, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Dwarf Mage, Elf Culture & Customs, Heist, Multi, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, References to Depression, Selectively Mute Character, The Fade, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27192883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TypingBosmer/pseuds/TypingBosmer
Summary: A collection of loosely connected ficlets about a group of original characters involved in the events of DA: Inquisition. Only one will be Inquisitor, but all have stories to tell.The cast:Jarvi of House Cadash — a sculptor and art forger in the employ of the Carta;Malinka of House Cadash — a rogue tasked with stealing elven 'collectables' from wealthy humans and returning them to the Dalish;Gwineth Lavellan — the First of Clan Lavellan, a passionate amateur historian and archeologist, and Malinka's contact among the Dalish;Moira Lavellan — Gwineth's mother, a city elf who escaped the Templars' wrath with her daughter when the latter's magic awoke;Otrada, formerly of House Cadash — a surfacer dwarf that works as a prop and costume maker at an Orlesian theatre. Malinka occasionally uses Otrada's lodgings as a hideout and borrows props from her if she needs a disguise;Corvus of House Cadash — a high-ranking Carta boss and semi-father figure to Jarvi and Malinka.
Relationships: Dragon Age: Inquisition Companions & Female Inquisitor, Female Inquisitor & Dorian Pavus, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Kudos: 7





	1. Table of Contents

**Author's Note:**

> The first "chapter" is going to be a list of the stories within this collection, with word counts and abstracts, so that the reader might skip the stories that are too long or focus on the characters they are not interested in, while still having a general idea of what happens in the stories that they skipped. Hence, spoilers may be present.
> 
> It's also worth noting that the collection can be divided roughly into two parts: the first few stories deal with backstory exposition and building up the characters, and are arranged more or less chronologically. The stories that will follow after will be various slices of the characters' life with the Inquisition, centered around their emotional baggage and relationships with their prospective LIs. These are not necessarily going to be chronological.
> 
> While the stories right now focus on the cast mentioned in the summary, Otrada specifically, there are two more OCs that might appear later on:
> 
> Magnus — an elven actor from the same Orlesian theatre where Otrada makes props;
> 
> Shoshana — a surfacer dwarf theatre fan that studies at the University of Orlais.
> 
> The author does not have enough self-discipline or stamina for a cohesive novelization of the entire game, so solid knowledge of the Inquisition plot is required in order to fill in the gaps.

**The Halla Job. ~4300 words.** A brief overview of the backstories of Jarvi, Malinka, Otrada, and Gwineth (with an honourable mention of Corvus). Corvus sends Jarvi and Malinka to the Temple of Sacred Ashes to pass a reclaimed halla carving to Gwineth, who is tasked with spying on the Conclave by her Keeper. Otrada also tags along with Malinka's encouragement, to research the Temple's architecture for some stage scenery that she needs to design.

 **Suddenly, Spiders. ~1700 words.** Separated from the others at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, Otrada finds herself in a bizarre place filled with green smoke, and faces a person from her past whom she would very, very much rather never think of again: her now-deceased abusive husband.

 **Hello Mamae. ~3300 words.** The past and present of Gwineth Lavellan and her mother Moira is explored while Gwineth gives Moira a 'call' via the sending crystal Corvus gave her to keep in touch for heist purposes, while in the middle of a battle on the Storm Coast, where she wreaks havoc among Tevinters in her enchanted wheelchair. It is revealed that Malinka and Jarvi have decided to stay with the Inquisition, side by side with the now Marked Otrada. Gwineth has joined them as well, despite her initial reluctance, after realizing that this is an excellent chance to help common city elf folk. Moira promises to travel to Haven as well.

 **A Coward's Weapon. ~3300 words.** Corvus reminisces about poisoning Otrada's husband, Snapper Cadash, for going too far in the abuse of his wife. Otrada fled to the surface after Snapper pretended to 'kill' their infant daughter Malinka to get a laugh out of her reaction, and Corvus assumes that she did not survive the journey. So he is definitely in for a surprise when he runs into her, now the Herald of Andraste, at the mansion of his old associate Bastien de Ghislain. She does not know that he is there — and he does not reveal himself to her, too ashamed of not standing up for her against Snapper.

 **Final Failure. ~4400 words.** Guilty over running away before investigating whether her daughter was really dead, and haunted by the thought of how inadequate she has proved herself as a mother, Otrada still decides that she will be protecting Malinka as best she can. This resolution is brought on by the discovery of Malinka's crystallized body in the Dark Future... And apparently, in addition to closing rifts and seeing dreams in the Fade, Otrada can also cast magic now.

 **Seeking A Teacher. ~3400 words.** No-one in the restored timeline remembers Otrada's sudden outburst of magic in the Dark Future, except for herself and Dorian. Feeling that she needs to control her newfound powers before she can make them public knowledge, Otrada attempts to listen to Dorian's excited lecture on magic, but quickly falls behind, as it gets too advanced too fast. Dorian then suggests studying under someone with actual teaching experience: his imprisoned mentor, Gereon Alexius. Otrada visits Alexius in the Fade, and they hit it off better than expected.

 **A Touch Of Colour. ~1300 words.** Otrada and Alexius continue meeting in the Fade, where he shows her the basics of spell-casting. Initially, Alexius' depressed state colours their surroundings into shades of grey, but as time passes, streaks of colour begin to return.


	2. The Halla Job

Jarvi Cadash moves stiffly, as if frostbitten.

Breath baited, he maneuvers between the boss's fancy furniture with about as much grace as a bronto in a glassblower's shop, and flinches every time the hem of his work clothing, coarse and pockmarked with splatters of dry clay, brushes against the gilded swirls on the side of a table, or the poofy arm rest of a bandy—legged Orlesian chair.

He knows that there is no need to flinch. He is no longer a raggedy kid from Dust Town, scurrying across the street with comical (he is sure) trips and falls whenever a proper caste dwarf passes by, lest their shadows intersect.

The brand on his cheek, still visible no matter how much he lets his curly, spade—shaped beard crawl up his face, does not mean a thing any more. Not like it used to back in Orzammar, where he was caught by the guards for playing with tools that a caste stonemason had laid aside while on a break for roast nug bites. Greasy roast nug bites: it's funny (he is sure), but he still remembers how the yellowish, oily ooze dripped down the mason's chin, mixing with spit, when he screamed about his tools being sullied by the hand of a casteless.

But that doesn't mean a thing any more. A lot of men and women and other dwarves in the Carta have brands like his, often highlighted by extra tattoos. Bright and bold, like a slap in the face for anyone who'd think it worse than the Blight to touch one of them, even if only as a shadow on the ground.

Even the boss has one. Jarvi can see it over the steep angle of his cheekbone, stark in the firelight, even before he turns in his chair, the biggest and poofiest and most Orlesian of all, to face his visitor head-on.

The boss is the one who got him out — took him to the surface before the Orzammar guards could cut off his hands for offending the mason's tools. And his hands serve the boss now, carving the stone like he'd always dreamed as a kid, always seeing shadows of faces and patterns within the rock, ready to be revealed.

He is welcome here.

Sometimes, the boss, who is always prickly and wary and watchful, like the bird he was named after by his long-dead parents — exiled from the Tevinter Ambassadorium, the whispers say — almost... Relaxes in Jarvi's presence. Like he only does with one other person: Malinka, his prized 'procurer' and the closest thing to an adopted child a man like Corvus Cadash can have.

There is no need to flinch. Yet Jarvi still does.

And when the boss swivels in his chair to greet him, saluting him with a glass of brandy (which he mostly cradles in his hand for status, as he rarely drinks, usually just watching his companions succumb to inebriation over the glass's rim, with his piercing pale eyes), Jarvi feels that his voice has left him. Again.

It always happens at the most inopportune moments. Any words he may have prepared clog up his throat, like leaves and twigs lumping together in a storm drain. He would love to get them all out, he really would, but no sound comes.

Thankfully, the boss knows that by now. If someone else were standing before him — like a bruiser umming and erring instead of a report — he would have scowled and spat something acerbic about 'tongues having other uses than various kinds of slurping'. But with Jarvi, he remains patient.

He sets his glass down, leans back in the chair, steeples his fingers together… And waits for Jarvi to show him the thick, heavy bundle that he has carried gingerly against his chest.

Jarvi pulls back the cloth he has wrapped his bundle in, with gentle care, as if unwrapping a swaddled infant. This reveals the pure-white — nearly glowing, in the soft haze of the firelight — head of an animal with almost eyes, and delicate, conch-shaped ears, and a whole forest thicket of antlers, entwining in a pattern that left Jarvi breathless when he helped it emerge from the stone. A halla. The loyal companion of the Dalish elves.

Its sculpted twin, instead of adorning the pride of place in a woodland sanctuary, antlered crown raised high and proud, has been trapped in the coffers of a human.

The kind of puffed-up, self-obsessed human that Malinka loves scamming so much. He probably calls this halla a goat.

But not for long.

After this first, brief demonstration, Jarvi places his precious cargo on the boss's desk and starts signing.

Another member of the Carta taught him that: before leaving for the surface, he had some friends in the mining caste, who had to sign to each other in the tunnels, where the slightest noise, the tiniest extra vibration of air can set off volatile raw lyrium... Or even awaken darkspawn.

This language, old as the bones of the earth, with some gestures for concepts that ceased to exist when the Deep Roads fell, has been helping Jarvi make himself understood through his bouts of speechlessness. And those who care enough to stop and listen to what he has to say, like Malinka — or the boss — have learned to keep up with him too.

'I carved it as best I could,' his hands explain, swift and assured — just like when he is at work in... In his studio, he supposes. At least, that's the word a human would use. For Jarvi, the word would be more like... Happy creative place. The place where the clay and rock come alive under his fingertips. The place where he does not need to choke on his own tongue to say what he wants to say.

'You know I had to rely on pictures in art books to copy from'.

Where someone whose voice is easier to wield and tame would have strung on the word 'sir' at the end, Jarvi finishes by crossing his wrists, fingers outward, and flapping his hands. Like a bird taking off.

There was no sign like that in the miners' silent language. The dwarves who came up with it had never seen the sky, or the winged critters flitting across it. Jarvi made it up himself. Two variations of it. There's another one, slightly different — his sign for a regular bird — and this one. A unique name sign for his boss. Corvus.

The boss's mouth — a straight, implacable line between two bushy sideburns — tilts up at the corners.

'I have confidence in your talents, Jarvi,' he says, in that raspy, drawling voice of his.

'You are always too good for this work. The human baron hoards antiques for the sake of having a hoard. He hardly ever looks at them — he just owns them. You could replace the elven carving with an imprint of a mabari's behind in the mud, and he would be none the wiser. All we need is to ensure that the number of his possessions remains the same after Malinka... relieves him of the real piece'.

A faint blue pulse ripples through the thin, frilly fabric of the shirt collar that peeks from under the boss's embroidered waistcoat. His lips twitch again and he pulls at the chain around his neck to bring out an elongated, shimmering crystal.

Once it rests on his open palm, the shimmer unfolds into the ghostly projection of a face. An elf, with a neatly combed ponytail and a very tall, broad forehead marked by the tell-tale Dalish vallaslin. Jagged and sharp like brittle tree branches in a dead forest.

'Just in time, Gwineth,' says the boss, half-nodding, half-bowing at the projection. 'Our resident sculptor, whom Malinka may have told you about, has just finished copying the halla head. We will be making the swap soon'.

His icy gaze shifts for a moment to a slip of paper on the desk. Its edges are uneven, and the writing on it is done in large, lopsided letters; there is a grimy corner of red cloth peeking from underneath it.

'I have some associates interested in thinning the baron's precious treasure trove. They sent me a tip that he will be moving some of the pieces to the vaults of a new country estate soon. The coward wants to hide from the Grand Duke's dread trebuchets, I think. When the collection is on the road, lightly guarded, it will be the perfect time to... act'.

'Thank you, serah Cadash,' says the elf. She sounds reserved and polite at first, but then her speech speeds up to an excited whirlwind.

'You are doing our clan such a great service. The carving has immeasurable historical value; I cannot wait to study it more closely!'

The boss dips his head in another half—bow.

'Both our peoples have lost too much. While I do love my gold, I prefer to extract it from the party that owes us centuries' worth of compensation... Humans. Your clan, just as other clans, will be receiving artefacts from House Cadash completely free of any obligation. Give Keeper Deshanna my compliments, as always'.

'Oh, about that!' the projection jerks in place a little, as Gwineth makes a noise of frustration.

'I got so caught up in thoughts of the carving that I almost forgot to tell you! I can't meet Malinka at the usual spot! There is some sort of big meeting in the works, between different warring factions of humans, I think — and Keeper Deshanna wants to send me to investigate; she thinks this could have major consequences for all Thedas... Of course, I would rather be left to my restoration work at the temple in the woods — but I am the First, so...'

She cuts herself short.

'What I mean to say is, I will be travelling to Ferelden soon'.

'I heard of the meeting you speak of,' the boss steeples his fingers again, tapping them lightly against one another.

'The Conclave at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. A lot of Chantry representatives will be congregating there, and given as the Carta wants to know how this will reflect on the lyrium business, I will be sending someone to investigate as well. Let us make it someone that you will be interested in seeing'.

...Later that evening, a thundercloud sweeps over the road out of the city, like a thickly padded grey cloak thrown across the sky.

The deluge that spills out of it hammers down with an almost merry ferocity, and soon, the grey swell of the sky is reflected in the squelching river of dark mud. It plops and bubbles under the hooves of the horses that strain to drag a laden carriage, and then another, and another, somewhere into the swaying, dancing, wind-whipped darkness of the countryside.

One by one, the carriages turn the bend, manned by servants and guards in the colours of their master, the illustrious baron. An endless green and yellow, turned drab and dark under the rain — except for a single spot of bright red, like the cloth underneath the letter from the mysterious trove-thinning associates of Corvus Cadash.

One of the footmen perched on the back of the carriage somewhere in the middle of the procession — a freckled elf with rain-flattened curls, who cannot stop grinning at something that no-one else among his soaked, sour-faced companions is privy to — is wearing a red cravat around his neck. It must be a glaring breach of the baron's uniform code — but it helps identify the carriage. For reasons that no-one but the footman is privy to.

When the carriage finally crawls towards the bend in the road, obscured by the terrain from both the ones behind and the ones ahead, a scream rings out through the wet murk.

It seems that the wheels of the carriage have hit a traveler on the way to the city. A simple village dwarven maiden, with two long strawberry blonde pigtails and a half-vacant, bucktoothed smile, which vanishes from her dimpled face when she topples into the mud, frilly cap askew, apples rolling out of her wicker basket, wailing and wailing and wailing.

The driver yanks at the reins, making the horses dig their hooves in. The baron's men spill out onto the road, kneading the dirt with their boots, looming over the dwarf, shouting advice that no-one seems to follow...

And in the midst of it all, Jarvi Cadash, slightly more at ease now that there is no priceless furniture for him to bump into, waddles to the back of the carriage and pushes his upper torso through the half-open door. The bundle is still with him, pressed down under his elbow. While its twin, as he guesses, awaits inside the massive ornate trunk that has been secured with leather straps just... a fraction... of... an inch... out of Jarvi's... reach...

Grunting and flopping his legs helplessly in the air, he remains stuck: one half of the body inside the carriage, the other left out in the rain.

He shouldn't have volunteered for this; he doesn't usually come with Malinka on her heists — and for good reason!

He is a sculptor, not a burglar. He does art forgeries, not the actual swaps!

He only tagged along because he wanted to meet up with that elf in person — ask her about that temple she is restoring... And check out the human temple too... Curse that bloody lure of ancient sculptures! Curse his ridiculous body!

How is he going to look his boss — Corvus — in the eye now?! And Malinka, too; she is out there, working so hard on her con, playing damsel in distress... She even got a special costume for it!

Maybe he should have been the one flipping about in the mud, crying for help... But the words are thrashing soundlessly at his throat again; he can't use his voice; he... he...

'There ya go!' a genial voice says, while a firm hand hoists him properly into the carriage.

'Do ya thing now! Get that halla out and take it back to the Dalish! One stolen treasure less for this shem prick!'

Out of the corner of his eye, Jarvi spots a round head of wet curls, and a flash of vibrant cravat. That's... The footman with the tip. A friend of Red Jenny.

A few more grunts and half-blind shoves (Jarvi kind of wonders is this is what it feels like to help an actual halla give birth to a calf), and the swap is complete.

The copy goes in the trunk — which has been left open by someone really careless, and curly, and still grinning, so radiantly that Jarvi's ears flare up piping red. And the original gets deftly wrapped into its bundle, ready to be carried across the sea and passed on to Gwineth the history enthusiast.

'All done, eh?' the footman asks genially, peeking into the carriage with arms extended to help Jarvi down.

'Creators speed ya along. Or Andraste. Or whatever ya believe in. It means a lot to me. To know that this halla will finally leave the snooty fuck's coffers and go to them who'd respect it. Red Jenny, she might not agree — but I am little people, and she is always there for little people. Thanks for being there too'.

The piping redness is now plastered all across Jarvi's face like a pillow, smothering him. The words do not come, and he doubts the elf will understand the signs. So he just stands after his fit hit the ground (or the muck that passes for it). Wet and useless, his beard a matted lump, a droplet of rain dangling off his nose.

The footman laughs, softly, sweetly, making something unspoken yet poignant churn in the pit of Jarvi's stomach.

'You are precious, you do know that?' he says, before leaning in for a quick kiss under Jarvi's moist moustache and taking a few paces in the direction of his fretful companions (who have finally begun to quieten down).

'Find me, if you wish. I am Rolan. When we come back from this trip, you can ask for me at the Last Three Coppers tavern on Saturdays. That's my day off'.

When he vanishes, swallowed by the dripping grey jaws of the rain, Jarvi curses himself some more. For not returning that kiss.

Why must he be so awkward? How can he expect to find his perfect, perfect lover — if he shuts himself away from those of real flesh and blood, and surrounds himself with sculptures and rosy daydreams of some fairytale prince from far, far away (like Tevinter or something) to sweep him off his feet? As if princes cared for Dust Town boors, who felt guilty staying too long in a room too nice for the likes of them.

Malinka comes trotting along, mud-splashed flowery skirt whipping around her fuzzy chubby legs, and yanks Jarvi's mind back to the flooded road, and to the task at hand.

'All right, those poor dusters have been left thinking that they breathed the gift of life back into me,' she says, squeezing water out of her pigtail with one hand and patting down the apples in her basket with the other.

They are not actually real, those apples. They are painted to look almost gaudily ripe, and hollow inside. Making for perfect cover on top of the carving bundle, which Jarvi mechanically passes on to Malinka, his mind still half-occupied by thoughts of Tevinter princes.

'The elves and humans from the carriage were very sweet to me, in a way. Especially that big burly lady in charge'.

She shakes her head wistfully.

'I almost feel sorry conning that one. Anyway. Let's get going before the big folk get suspicious. I gotta return my props'.

...Braving the river-like road, where the water level is not exactly dwarf-friendly, Jarvi and Malinka return to the city. One they are past the gates — 'Two humble farmers carrying the fruit from our orchard to trade,' Malinka tells the guards in a singsong voice, twirling her pigtails and drawing circles in the mud with the tip of her shoe — they dive into an unpaved side street, and then another, and another still, so narrow that Jarvi almost gets stuck again.

Malinka leads the way in confident strides, effortlessly navigating the maze of soggy walkways and long murky puddles in place of dirt paths... As if she designed this place herself. She even seems to know the exact times when to duck as chamber pot contents come flying over their heads out of some back window or other, and exchanges the slow blinks of greeting with busy—looking stray cats that brush past, calling each of them by name.

Their trek ends at the back door of a fairly large building, with colourful paper rectangles floating here and there in the puddles around the threshold. While Malinka knocks, Jarvi peers down in idle curiosity and, amid the streaking blobs that the water has already seeped through, discerns... Someone much like the Tevinter prince from his daydreams. Except more gaudily dressed, endless ribbons and flaps of cloth swirling all around him, and bent backwards so that his head almost touches the ground, while his wide—open mouth has a string of notes trailing out of it.

So that’s what this place is. A music theatre. Yes, of course! Malinka mentioned that she had a friend here; someone who gives her props and costumes for cons, and hides her from the guards now and again, and offers her...

'A warm bath and a meal! And quick!'

The back door has creaked open, and a face has appeared in the crack (which glows an enticingly warm yellow with the indoor light). The face of a fellow dwarf.

A woman, on the oldish side — not quite as old as the boss, with his silver sideburns and deep frown lines, but definitely older than Malinka and Jarvi. She has curious features that Jarvi would have loved to sculpt — as a bust, most likely, as he is... not the greatest expert when it comes to carving full-size figures of women. Her nose seems to have been broken several times, and her cheeks are crossed by several scars. She wears her greying light-brown hair in a loose bun, and the strands that frame her face nearly conceal — but not quite — the familiar casteless brand.

After gasping in concern at the sight of her bedraggled guests, the woman swings the door wider and corrects herself, with an oddly over-apologetic tone.

'Of course, I have no right to baby you like that, and I am so, so sorry! If you are just here to bring the apples back, I understand'.

Malinka waves the apology away, with a mixture of gratitude and mild confusion.

'Come on, Otrada! Who ever said no to stuff like that on a rainy night! Also, I may have... gotten too theatrical with your village girl costume, so it kinda needs a wash. And no, I am gonna do it yourself!'

Otrada nods, still looking sheepish for some reason, and the trek resumes, this time under her guidance, and through a much drier maze of creaky staircases and musty corridors, with plenty of ducking under wooden planks and squeezing past what looks like the backside of canvas scenery. Also an occasional giant head with an empty-eyed stare that, when Jarvi meets it in the flickering light, almost makes him drop the basket with the carving.

Otrada sees him start and blurts out a new apology — but he (still not capable of speaking) shushes her by frantically miming a letter X with his forearms. It's not her fault, really; when the lighting is dim enough, he gets jumpy at the sight of his own sculptures.

Otrada lives in an attic room above the theatre. A vast, wall-less space, a bedroom and kitchen and study all in one, littered with even more canvases and what look like giant ball-jointed wooden dolls, some of them draped in glinting embroidery and leaning seductively against chests and crates and some blurred silhouette that Jarvi designates, for his own peace of mind, as a sofa (even though it could be a stuffed dragon for all he knows).

In between dashing back and forth with towels and spare clothes and rattling stacks of... not exactly pristine plates, Otrada manages to explain to Jarvi that she is the theatre's prop and costume master, and has known Malinka for five years or so. Ever since the younger dwarf, as a green new rogue of little past twenty, fell through the leaky roof of her attic in an attempt to leap from building to building with a nobleman's hired mercenaries hot on her trail.

'She is from Dust Town like you!' Malinka pipes in cheerfully, poking her head from behind a flimsy screen that shields the brass washing tub. 'Left as a kid and was adopted by a bunch of actors — right, Otrada?'

Otrada's face darkens, and she turns away from both Malinka and Jarvi, who is patiently awaiting his turn to bathe while cautiously eyeing the dry clothes that the hostess has fished out for him (it's hard to tell from the haphazardly folded square, but thinks he thinks it is some manner of bright-green onesie with faux oak leaves sewn all over it).

'I was nineteen,' she says, in a stilted, colourless voice, hugging herself tightly. 'But yes, that's pretty much what happened'.

A strained, stifling pause follows. Jarvi wishes he could fill it — but no matter how hard he swallows, lump after lump,his throat contracting forcefully as if he were coming down with a cold, his voice is still nowhere to be found. Thankfully, Malinka soon steps out from behind the screen, rosy from the hot water, and, with a small cough, does her best to break the ice.

'Hey Otrada! You are researching set designs for a new play, right? About Andraste's ashes?'

Otrada, who has taken to rummaging for food through little cabinets on the other side of the room — cracking and coated in half peeled-off paint — almost punches herself in the eye with a jar of preserves.

'You... You remembered,' she mouths, just as stunned as Jarvi was when the boss first made that benevolent mouth twitch in his direction.

'Well yeah!' Malinka shouts over the clamour of brass as she changes the bath water.

'And guess what! Me and Jarvi here are being sent to Ferelden to do some... Carta staff — at the Temple of Sacred Ashes! You could come with us! See what the place actually looks like! Jarvi doesn't talk a lot, but on our way there, you can learn the sign language he uses; there is so much you could talk about! He makes art, like you! Well, you paint and craft props, and he sculpts — but still! And my contact, Gwineth, she knows so much about elven history, and is restoring an ancient temple of her people together with her clan! By hand! All the more fellow artists for you to befriend! And Gwineth — unlike Jarvi — is into women, so maybe this time around, you will finally find someone who won't break your heart! Unlike that Monty bastard — are you still sure you don't want me to stab him? Or what about Whatshername... Alicia? She is definitely begging to be stabbed! Or ugh... Frederick?'

Jarvi nods vigorously to show that he supports the idea. The shared journey, that is, not the stabbing. Though he does trust Malinka to be a good judge of who deserves that.

Otrada looks like she is about to cry.

'I... Thank you,' she mumbles, clutching the preserves to her chest sentimentally.

'This would be the greatest experience of my life'.


	3. Suddenly, Spiders

Otrada does not understand how this happened. How she got here.

She was... somewhere else only just now. Somewhere completely different.

First, she was gawking at the human temple from the outside, chatting excitedly with the younger dwarves and the Dalish elf... And trying to make sure that the imposing, weather-worn walls and arches were the only thing she gawked at: the Dalish, Gwineth, was moving about in a most fascinating chair that was mounted on wheels and glowed with the soft, subtle aura of an enchantment.

Otrada would have so loved to take a closer look at it, and ask Gwineth about the mechanics of it, with the same fervour as when she was asking her and Jarvi about art (intermingled with apologies, of course, as she already too much of a burden on these generously friendly young souls).

Yes, she would have loved to learn more about the enchanted chair-on-wheels. As someone who herself has pieced together a few wooden constructs and pulley systems and harnesses for actors (so they could seemingly 'soar' over the heads of the stunned, slack-jawed public). But that would be rude.

Gwineth is not a performer, playing some... make-believe ogre on stilts. This is not a theatrical prop, not a toy in an actor's hands: it's a vital tool. And Otrada has babbled too much as it is.

So eventually, she began to quietly edge away from the other three. Further and further away, as she was feeling guiltier and guiltier: for talking, for taking up space, for distracting Malinka and her friends from their important Carta thing - passing on that halla carving to Gwineth, so the could take it back to her clan, and keeping an eye on all the busy scurrying humans all around in the process.

She soon made enough distance between herself and the youngsters, wincing every time the snow under her feet creaked too loudly and hoping that they were not bothered, and had not even noticed her absence. And then, she found herself whisked away by the crowd of those busy humans: whole river of red and white, robed backs shuffling against each other, like cards laid put on the enormous, snow-capped stony table.

After a few feeble attempts to escape the river, she discovered the she was edged in too tightly between the sharp, prodding human elbows. It was impossible to push towards the edge, or to walk in any direction except forward. Forward, forward, forward, inside, and then down the temple corridors.

So she let the cards fan out, and went with the flow, putting one foot in front of the other to keep up with the sweeping march of the much longer human limbs.

The red-and-white Chantry folk paid her little heed, too focused on getting wherever it was they needed to be, and Otrada could only hope that, once they got there, she would be able to find some wiggle room, and slip away... Maybe find a convenient nook where she could discreetly make some sketches of the temple layout? For future reference when she gets to designing the theatre sets.

And then... Then... There is a blank spot in her memory. The chain of events has been snapped in two, and when she tries to drag the broken links together, bridging this sudden, inexplicable gap, all she gets is a thrumming, aching head and watering eyes.

Finally, she gives up, blinks the moist fog off, and attempts to take a better look around.

She does not understand how this happened. How she got here. Or what this place even is.

It looks like one of the passages in the Temple that the crowd marched by... Except - except it's wrong. The doorways are overturned, touching the floor with the part where they arch, and the walls are half-crumbled, putrid green smoke boiling over the toothy holes in the masonwork like foul breath. Somewhere in the depths of that smoke, she can even make out... floating chunks of something solid... Like rocks or... A chair or two... A wheel of cheese?

She blinks again, scratching absentmindedly at some kind of itch that keeps flaring up through the mitten on her left hand.

Whatever they are, none of these things are supposed to float! Unless you attach strings to them and make them zoom up and down over actors' heads, to imitate... The Fade?

She's read a lot about the Fade, delighted by the idea that this is a place where the most absurd things can happen. Meaning that whenever she needs to create a backdrop for a Fade scene in the play, she can go absolutely hog-wild, painting giant severed heads with trees growing on their rolled-out tongues, and little islets in the green sky with waterfalls rushing upwards from them, and silhouettes of fantastical animals in the distance, like ooh-lee-phants from the Empress' zoo, but with bone-thin legs as tall as pine trees. All without fear of the director telling her that she has gone too far! Because apparently, there is no such thing as going too far in the Fade!

But why... Why would the Temple of Sacred Ashes, a sombre place of Andrastian worship, have a whole room with a backdrop imitating the Fade, like one of Otrada's? Which this place has to be, because she is a dwarf. She can't actually travel to the Fade, except for the fake one, all canvas and paint and multi-coloured smoke bombs and clever hidden levers.

Or... Or did she stumble into that Gauntlet, from Brother Genitivi's story of the Hero of Ferelden? Is she being tested? Punished for wandering in too far? And she has already failed, hasn't she? She always does.

She presses her hand against her throat, fear ripping at her like a mabari's battle collar with the thorns turned inward... And as she stumbles forward, clueless and helpless, a figure steps out of the green vapour to block her path. A blocky, hunching figure, with the stature and shoulders of a male dwarf.

She thinks it's Jarvi at first, there to fetch her and bring her back to the others. A cry of relief rushes to her lips - only to be pushed back down her innards and into her stomach, hardening on the way into a spear of ice.

The fuzzy green coils have rolled back, and the dwarf's face has emerged from the vapour. It's nothing like Jarvi's - but everything like the darkest shadows that she has been trying so hard to push to the edges of her memory. Praying, to whatever entity that might care to listen to the likes of her, that if the shadows stay there, far enough away, they might fade with time. And this face, this sodding face, might fade with them.

But no, here it is. Here he is. Back again, looming in her way, as if she had never left Dust Town.

As if she had never gotten these grey hairs, and tired bruises under her eyes, and sun freckles on her nose and shoulders.

As if she were in her late teens again, just barely past the threshold of adulthood. Pale and scrawny, wilting away on a diet of deep mushrooms to pretend that her stomach was full, and dust to pretend that she was sprinkling her food with surface spices like her brandless betters, and moss ale to pretend that things were not so bad after all. Desperate to make her miserable life a bit better - please, please, even the tiniest bit. And stupid enough to believe that a marriage to a small-time Carta boss, who strutted about the slums like the cock of the walk, thick gilded clips dangling from his wispy blonde beard, would be her ticket out.

'No,' she says, backing away. 'No!'

Even her voice forgets the years that have passed, and breaks into a girly squeak.

'No! I... I got away from you! You are dead! You've been dead for twenty-seven years! I heard the rumours, even on the surface! Some duster from your own clan poisoned you! You are...'

He does not bat an eye, and advances at her. His eyes are fixated on her, round and unblinking and so watery grey that they seem white as milk. He flexes his fingers, and out of nowhere, solidifying from a wisp of smoke with a faint hiss, a knife appears in his hand, and she feels fire course through the scars on her face. All over again.

All over again, her legs give way. She sinks to the mist-coated ground, kneeling before him with her head squeezed between her shoulders.

'I am sorry,' she whimpers, going with the flow again. Dissolving in the memories of Dust Town. The itch in her left palm turns into pulsing pain, but she pays it little heed, in the face of the shadow that falls over her. Stretching from her husband's feet and consuming her small, cowering form whole.

'I am sorry. I overreacted again. I ruined your fun. I am so, so sorry'.

She looks up tentatively, searching his gaze in hope that he will turn to breaking her things instead of her nose. But he just grins. Wider and wider - while his eyes still don't blink... And suddenly, there is more of them, four, six, eight - eight pale orbs on a leering face, dipped into deep pond green by this place's lighting.

The green ever deepens, and the leer continues to stretch out. His teeth are pincers now, massive and oozing. Countless tiny barbs rise from his body, ripping through wine-stained clothing; his knife has become one with his arm, a sharp claw at the end of an elongated, gnarly limb. One of a pair, as his other arm twists and crackles to mirror it. Then, one of four, and one of eight. Eight limbs skitter closer, carrying his bloated, unrecognizable body, and eight eyes bore into her. Hungry.

The skittering sound echoes through the smoke, and more creatures like this appear around Otrada, pincers clicking.

She gapes at them, petrified, no longer knowing where or when or who she is... Until a new flash of pain nearly splits her palm apart. She gasps, the shackles of her stupor falling back... Scrambles dazedly to her feet...

And runs.


	4. Hello Mamae

Haunches deep in the mist, as if wading through milk, the deer lingers on the very edge of a clearing, where the black leafy lattice of the forest ends and the silky spread of dewy grass begins. It shimmers, silver and lilac in the pre-dawn light, and the touch of breeze makes it ripple, rising and falling like the chest of a living, breathing thing. Exhaling a fragrant warmth. Beckoning the deer to feast.

Soon, unable to wait any longer, with the clearing's bounty reflected in its enormous, thick-lashed eyes, the deer will step out in the open. Waiting for that moment, hidden within the twists and crossings of the forest's lattice, is a hunter.

A woodland elf. Marked by vallaslin on one half of her face (the good half, not boiled into mangled scars). But not quite Dalish.

This — the early morning silence, the lilac shadows, the milky churn of the mist — was not originally her element. She was born amid crammed, lopsided buildings in the shadow of a human-built wall, so tall that it made you sick to look up at it too long. Back there, the only tree she had ever known was the alienage's vhenandahl, beautiful but so lonely in a sea of stone and clay and rotting straw.

Then, came a new life. After she escaped the alienage, with her mage daughter in her arms and with shem Templars at her heel, one of them still carrying the torch that had made her flesh scream in white-hot agony... And well. That new life was bloody overwhelming at first.

The forests were too loud at night, with all the chirping and the croaking and the rustling in the dark tree crowns. Her saviors, clad in beautifully adorned, feather-light armour, standing at least a head taller than the malnourished alienage folk, and speaking with an accent that still preserved the song-like inflections of their ancestral language, were polite and understanding and... good. Good both to her and to her daughter, for whom the clan craftsmen fashioned an enchanted chair so she could move about, and whose magic the Keeper promised to properly mould... Like a nugget of gold, not the blemish of a curse. But she still felt uneasy around them, her bare face burning under their intent gazes, her sweaty hands messing up the grip of her brand-new training bow. They did not say anything — they were polite and understanding and good, and her daughter, her Gwineth, loved being around them — but she was so damn terrified that amongst themselves, they were calling her a flat-ear. A lesser elf. Someone who might be their guest at best, but would never truly become one of them. At least, that's how some of the stories went.

...The stories were full of shit, though. Probably spread by shems, to keep the People in the alienages from raising their heads; from looking up from the dirt and remembering that they were still one with the forest.

Those shem lies are a thing of the past. She has been with the clan — her clan now; her new family — for ten years now.

She has earned her vallaslin: the thorny vines of Elgar'Nan on one half of her face, to honour the fire that scorched the other but did not burn away her pride. Much later than most of the young Dalish, but earned it nonetheless.

She has mastered the ways of the hunt. She feels one with the dark of the woods, and, with scarcely any effort, with the natural ease of breathing, discerns patterns in the chirping and the croaking and the rustling. She knows the heart and mind of the deer that she has been following. She knows when to notch her arrow. When to pull back the string. When to shoot.

And shoot she does, just as the deer leaves the safety of the inky thicket. She shoots... And misses.

The arrow draws a feeble curve in the air and, sinking into the mist, thunks to the ground, useless. The deer twitches its ears and bounds away, back into the lilac murk. She watches the white spot of its raised—up tail bounce further and further away, and curses, gripping her bow so tightly that the wood almost snaps.

Her hands are sweating again, and her mind drifts off. Towards the horizon, where a swirl of green flares in sickly pulses, funneling clouds into it with a feverish kind of thirst.

She was never truly focused on the hunt. Not this time. Not when some weird shit is happening to the sky, and the Keeper talks to her remaining apprentices in a sombre, hushed tone about agitated spirits in the Beyond, and the star apprentice of them all — Gwineth, her Gwineth — is still away on that Conclave mission. When she should have been back days ago.

Her thoughts thrash and clamour so loudly that she misses all the signs she's learned from her hunter mentors. The squelch of the dew-touched soil, the heave in the undergrowth, the snapping of twigs. Someone has been sneaking up on her from the back, and yet she remains utterly clueless. Until the sound of a husky voice startles her, making her whip around and yank a dagger from her belt, pointing it at the throat of...

A dwarf. In a hooded cowl that casts a deep shadow, revealing only a clean-shaven, almost human-like chin and a pair of silver sideburns.

'You are a hard woman to track down, Moira. Which is commendable, really, given the treasures that your clan guards'.

Her ears twitch. So that's him. Corvus Cadash. The Carta boss who sends his little rogue Malinka to clean shemlen coffers of stolen artefacts, which she then delivers to Gwineth.

She has never met him personally. She's only ever met Malinka. And only a couple of times at that — when Gwineth took her to see the restoration work on the Elvhen temple that their clan has discovered and claimed. (Gwineth once let it slip that she and Malinka had shared more than a parcel with an artefact, but the girls are always too busy, one with her studies, and the other with her heists, to have a proper relationship. Or so they say. This had better be the truth; if she ever discovers that the little thief rejected her daughter, she will use her guts for bowstring).

But even though the mastermind behind all of this... reclamation of Elvhen heritage has never graced her with his presence before, she has heard of him. She has heard plenty. And even though her daughter trusts him, and Malinka is eager as a pup to please him, this does not make them all jolly good friends.

'Why are you stalking me?' she asks through gritted teeth, dagger still raised. 'By yourself? With no smugglers to do all the work? Come to finally collect your fee for helping us? I knew the Carta does not do charity!'

'It is not charity, friend,' the voice drawls pleasantly from under the cowl. His breath clouds the dagger's steel, but she sees no sign that his pulse has quickened.

'I am always true to my word. No. I have been trying to find you because your daughter and I possess two halves if my people's very special, very useful contraption. Something that I would not entrust to any of my kin... Except perhaps, Jarvi, but he rarely talks — or Malinka, but she is undisposed at the moment'.

'What contraption?' she demands, ever confused and ever irritated, driving the edge of the blade just a little bit deeper.

It has not quite broken skin yet, but it just might. The dwarf has to understand that, but there is nary a quiver in his voice.

'A sending crystal. This is how we talk across the distance, and how we arrange our meetings. Or used to arrange them anyway'.

She is not sure whether she intended this or not, but her hand jerks, and the dagger makes a thread—thin scratch under the dwarf's chin, raining several tiny, dark droplets.

'What do you mean... Used to?'

Jaw squared, muscles tense, she towers over the dwarf, a myriad of possible answers tossing inside her skull. A wild swarm of frantic thoughts that threatens to claw its way out through her stinging, widened eyes.

'Gwineth has had to put her operations with the artefacts on hold. She cannot return from Ferelden, not yet. I am bringing you the crystal so she can explain why in person'.

As if on cue, something crackles and sparks blue under the folds of his cowl. There is a... glowing pendant around his neck. Like lyrium or... Or something...

Entranced, she takes a step back, drawing her dagger away and giving Corvus enough room to grasp at the crystal and hold it up to her face. A flash pierces the forest shade, and a half—transparent apparition hovers in front of her. The face of her Gwineth. With that intensely focused expression she gets when she wants to say something important.

She sounds hasty, winded — and her image flickers in and out, appearing slightly to the left and then to the right. As if she were also wearing the crystal round her neck, and it were swinging back and forth while she is hurrying somewhere.

'Mamae, are you there? The image quality must be really poor, and I’m sorry for that... There is a lot of gravel here, and even with enchantments, the good old chair gets stubborn sometimes... And yes, I've been going silent for too long...'

Her breath catches, yet again, and she screams something at someone unseen. Her features twist into a grimace of concentration, and then there is an odd bang, like she has thrown a fireball... Is she in the middle of a battle?

Well. She seems to be handling herself pretty damn well. She always has: she is, after all, the star apprentice. With her nose buried in a book half the time — and with an orb of an elemental spell sizzling through her fingers during the other half.

The panicked buzz ebbs away from the mother's skull, and in its stead, she feels a spark of morbid interest. She always liked a good fight, and knowing how expertly Gwineth zooms around the tallest scaffolding in the temple, this has to be quite a show.

'... I should have sent a messenger bird, I guess,' Gwineth continues, biting her lip in concentration. For a moment, the view of her head is blocked out by her raised fist, lightning magic convulsing in her grasp. She releases it, with another bang. Followed by a muffled scream.

'...But everything is so chaotic around here that contacting Corvus seemed like a better alternative... Since the poor bird might have gotten eaten by an angry spirit along the way'.

She dips her head, ducking some unseen projectile. Then, the projection tilts to the side; she must be swerving her chair... Or... Or not. The crunch that comes next sounds very much like bones being broken. She must have rolled over the blighter! Who definitely must have had it coming!

Ah, there's her girl! Alive and knocking heads!

'...So anyway! The green light that you may have noticed in the sky is a breach into the Beyond. It just... incessantly brings forth scores upon scores of spirits. Deformed and disoriented and lashing out at any mortal that crosses their path. This is an event of colossal scale, and we are all here to witness it!'

A second face peeks into the projection at this point. Malinka, grinning from ear to ear, with what looks like a clot of viscera snailing down her forehead.

'Hello Mistress Moira! Hello Corvus!'

'Malinka,' the dwarf says, almost tenderly. 'Any kills to boast of?'

'Two Tevinters! Got one with my dagger through the eye socket, just like you taught me! The other I just smoke-bombed in the face and shoved into the sea!'

'Tevinters?' Corvus asks, and while his face remains half—obscured, there is something in his voice that makes Moira swear that he is cocking an eyebrow.

'Humans? Mages?'

'Yes!' says Gwineth.

Her face lurches downwards and vanishes — only to be replaced with a different picture. all tinted in shades of blue. She must have turned the crystal away from her own face, to show Moira and Corvus what is going on around her.

And that truly is a good fight. Against the backdrop of silhouetted branches, glowing spectres clash together: shemlen in odd hoods, each adorned with three broad flaps, are falling back under the onslaught of Malinka's daggers, and the enormous warhammer of someone with a pair of... horns?

'Is that one of the... demons? Corrupted spirits?' Moira asks, squinting.

'No!' Malinka's voice comments breathlessly, in between very juicy hacking and squeezing noises. As if she were dicing up raw meat.

'It's a Qunari! The Iron Bull of the Bull's Chargers! We are here to recruit him for the Inquisition — for our cause! Look, look at him go!'

The horned apparition turns around, swinging the warhammer in a deadly whirlwind, and the hooded shemlen come flying in all directions, limp as ragdolls

'Isn't he amazing! Oh, I wish you could see his muscles up close!'

'Gods, lethallin, get your saliva off my crystal!' Gwineth grumbles. For a moment, both Moira and Corvus have to clamp their hands over their ears, as they are assaulted by unbearably squeaky wiping noises.

When this torment ends, the crystal's perspective shifts back to Gwineth's face.

'And this is what we are all up to right now. Fighting Tevinter mages. Slavers, we think. They've started appearing all over the coast, and deeper in the Hinterlands too. We do not know if they have anything to do with the breach yet... But either way, a group of former Chantry soldiers — the Inquisition — is trying to heal the Veil, and I am doing my part as well!'

... In truth, Gwineth did not plan to do her part at first. She had gotten her halla carving, and stayed behind long enough to make sure that all her companions survived the blast of wild magic that created the breach.

Otrada in particular worried her. What with the living scar that had inexplicably appeared on her hand, spitting the energy of the Beyond like a cooking pan spits hot grease.

They had not known each other very long, but Otrada was so nice to Malinka — to all of them, really, even if she did look bizarrely scared half the time, like she expected them to hit her... Even though she was the oldest of them all, and all she ever did was fuss — very tentatively — over them being hungry or tired. Gwineth would sincerely mourn this odd theatre lady if those pulses of green fire within her flesh became the end of her.

But she pulled through, and all that she needs now is help with hiding from all the shems that got it into their heads that she was touched by Andraste. But Malinka's got that part covered. While the Inquisition's resident apostate healer has taken it upon himself to study the magical scar. Gwineth would have loved to take part in his research, but he does not seem too thrilled to have a Dalish around him.

And besides, she has books waiting to be read, and temple repairs waiting to be overseen, and new spells waiting to be learned from the Keeper. She had her mind set on returning home, but then... Then, she was tagging along with the Inquisition forces that passed through the Hinterlands — one last time, she told herself — and a man, a fellow elf, bony and sallow with worry, nigh threw himself at Otrada's feet, begging someone, anyone to find a way into the hills and fetch a medicine for his sick wife.

...Her mother and herself had once been once kin to elves like him. Barefaced, trapped within a world of walls, where the only tree they knew was the lonely vhenandahl.

She was a teenager when, one day, she floated into her parents' tiny, neatly swept kitchen. Quite literally floated. Giddy with the 'cool new thing she could do'. Eager to show mamae and papae — who sat hugging each other in stunned silence at their little table with a white lace tablecloth — how she moved about without her crutches, borne aloft by a soft, pulsing cloud of turquoise glow.

The Templars came soon after. Her mother put up a fight before finally resigning to a wild, half—blinded rush out of the city. She always puts up a fight. But her father — a soft—spoken, diminutive man with spindly legs and the huge round forehead that she has inherited — he could not fight. Not with his fists, not even with his favourite knitting pins (which were out of his reach).

So he begged instead. Begged the humans not to hurt his Gwineth. Begged, until his shaky, desperate voice was smothered by a throaty gargle, and the tip of a blade, glinting a ruby red, came out of his mouth — thrust into his back all the way through.

Gwineth still dreams of that blade sometimes. This is why she does not levitate any more: the memory of her first attempt to do that drags forth other memories, uncoiling like a spool of yarn. Until the thread inevitably brings her to the ruby blade. And her father's final moments.

She caught the end of that thread, too, when the man from the Hinterlands begged for the Inquisition's help. In his eyes, bleary and bruised for lack of sleep, she saw a shadow of her father... And realized, her heart feeling like it had shrunk into a crumpled ball and then spread to twice its size, that she wanted to stay. To help this man, and other elves like him. Her People, once her kin, still her kin, who now had wild spirits and a bleeding sky to deal with on top of all their other troubles. And yes, that includes the acerbic apostate.

So here she is now. Rolling back and forth across the glistening pebbles and felling slavers from Tevinter with a volley of fire and lightning blasts. Her nostrils are prickled by the sharp mix of brine and soggy seaweed and singed cloth and flesh; and her ears ring with the incessant, chaotic eruptions of magic and screams, overlaid on top of the steady, subtle hum of her chair's glyphs. They will fade after a while, and she will have to renew them like the Dalish taught her, if she wants to maneuver over this terrain with as little difficulty as possible. But for now, the enchantment holds, and she flies back and forth along the coastline, the salty spray stinging her face and slaver bones snapping under her wheels.

Her mother's face hovers before her, projected by Corvus' sending crystal. And with every spell cast, every arrow fired, every crimson arc traced through the air by Malinka's daggers, every rock split open by the overpowering strike of the big Qunari's hammer, her face lights up with more and more keen interest.

'You know what, Gwen,' she says at last, 'I think I will join that cause of yours. Try my luck at hunting something other than deer'.

Corvus' face appears before Gwineth next. He is wearing a cowl, and there is little to read in its deep blue shadow (not like the man has a very expressive face in the first place).

'I think I might pay the Inquisition a visit as well, after getting some affairs in order. Many of those in power will be drawn to the Inquisition soon, and I want to be there'.

'We won't promise we'll save any demons for you to kill, will we Gwen?' mamae asks.

'No we won't,' Gwineth agrees and, as the crystal's light goes out, dashes back into the fray.


	5. A Coward's Weapon

Twenty-seven years ago, a certain dwarven thug, member of a Carta clan, with a moderate rank but a far from moderate ego, known best as Snapper — for twisting the arm of one of his underlings in the wrong direction till the bone snapped, or maybe for snapping the fingers of another under his boot, all for a laugh — dropped dead in the middle of wrecking the store of some duster that hadn't scraped together enough protection money. Just gargled, and heaved to the side, a broken chair leg still clasped in his fist... And froze up forever.

Some would say that he'd returned to the Stone, but she wouldn't be too keen on dealing with the likes of him. And not because he had made plenty of expeditions to the surface, and travelled too long under the forbidden sky. There was just too much... bile in him. Way too putrid. The Stone would not like that; too bad for her health.

But either way, he dropped dead. Poisoned, of course. There was no mistake about it. Any Carta rogue worth their lyrium dust would be able to see the signs. How much the colour of his usually ruddy face had deepened, turning downright purple. How his straw-like beard had soaked through with froth. Yes, it was all clear as surface day: Snapper had been poisoned, and there was no mistake about who did it either.

Corvus.

His second in command, always standing behind him, silent as a ghost, boring into people with those piercing blue eyes of his. He filled the gap in the ranks that Snapper had freed up, and then began to rise, rise, rise at a breakneck speed, finally opening his mouth to reveal a clever tongue that got him, and the entire clan, further than Snapper's grabbing, punching fists ever had.

It was him, people said — not even particularly outraged; the clan was raking in way more profit now, after all. It was him. Had to be him. He stood to gain the most — and wasn't that why his family had been kicked out of the Ambassadorium and stripped of their caste? Didn't his father try to poison his political rival? Didn't he, people asked.

...Gum-flapping fools, the lot of them. They tossed that word about like a nugskin football — 'tried' — and did not stop and think what that meant. If you merely tried to poison someone, this implies that they lived. That you failed. Like Corvus' father had failed.

When people blabbed about that... incident, excited to find a pattern, 'like father like son', they did not consider this. They did not know that Corvus' father had gotten caught in the act because he had been too slow, too clumsy. His hands had been shaking too much.

Corvus' hands never shook. He had weighed, and measured, and mixed the ingredients with an assured steadiness. His motions had been rhythmic like a clockwork construct's. His mind had been clear, guiding his every gesture, every even, almost serene breath — all according to a rigid, infallible inner plan.

That is, the front part of his mind. The back had been taken up by a singular thought — his driving reason for doing this. A thought alight with a cold, pure flame. Fuel for the construct to run on.

And no, it wasn't the thought of the power or gold that he could claim if he were to take Snapper's place. Enticing as power and gold were — still are — they were not what he imagined back then, twenty-seven years ago.

What he imagined — what he remembered, rather, holding the memory in place with steely raven claws, lest the white flame simmer down — was a child's crib.

Smashed to pieces, and splattered with red.

It was blood — that red in his mind, speckled all across the scattered splinters, and marring a discarded stuffed... some critter or other, sewn by the clumsy hands of Snapper's young wife, who would always keep trying to make things, to draw things, to cobble things together, much as her husband ripped them apart with a leering relish.

The red speckles were blood, yes. But not that of any dwarf child. The crib shards had been sprinkled with a dash of nug blood, left over from a recent slaughter.

That had been meant to be a prank. Back in life, Snapper had sure loved playing pranks. Crude, and vicious, and intended to make people slobber in pain for his amusement, just as they would have slobbered if he were to snap their bones. And after they had slobbered to his satisfaction, he would make them slobber some more, by hitting them and yelling at them for 'not getting his joke' and 'ruining the fun'.

Such had been the entertainment of Snapper Cadash. Definitely too putrid for the Stone.

That particular time, shortly before Snapper's overdue demise, he had picked... the victim that he would subject to his 'pranks' most often of all. His own wife. The mother of his babe — tiny Malinka, cradled in Corvus' arms, warm and safe and alive and innocently oblivious, while he watched the scene unfold through the keyhole in the room next door. 

'She was wailing too hard, see,' that’s what Snapper had said. With a smug smirk in anticipation of his wife's reaction.

Corvus remembered that perfectly — still remembers, twenty-seven years after he brewed that poison.

'So I took care of her. For good. You can always squeeze out another one, can't you, doll?'

According to the rules of entertaining Snapper Cadash, she should have burst into tears, and collapsed at his feet, maybe grabbed the blood-splattered toy and held it up to her swollen, twitching face... But at that moment, at that particular moment, she instead stood up straighter, her back an unyielding line, and cast a brief, searing glance at Snapper, and turned around... And left. Left the room, the house, Dust Town. With nothing but the clothes on her back. Never to return again.

She must have since perished in the Deep Roads. All on her own, and so very young, nearly a child herself, several years Corvus' and Snapper's junior.

But her final act, before being swallowed up by the unknown, had been to petrify Snapper so profoundly that it hadn't even occurred to him to pursue her. Not before it was too late anyway — not before the poison was ready.

They call poison a coward's weapon, and Corvus will be the first to admit that he is a coward.

He is a coward now, so deeply entangled in that 'Game' the humans play that he even got a mask made for himself.

And he was a coward twenty-seven years ago, when he remained standing and watching, with the unsuspecting baby asleep in his embrace. Instead of running off after her mother, and standing between her and Snapper, and facing him head-on.

Like he honestly should have done even earlier than that. The very first time he saw Snapper needlessly maim a clan member for his own sick enjoyment, he should have thrust a dagger deep into his eyeball and twisted. Like his mother taught him, and he later taught Malinka. Instead of grovelling and lurking in Snapper's shadow and biding his time until the blighter went too far, he should have...

...He should have. But he didn't. He chose the coward's way, a coward's weapon. And has excelled at wielding it.

Now, twenty-seven years later, he is crafting this weapon yet again. It has become a habit by now. He can even afford to reminiscence, while his hands do all the work, with honed, mechanical precision. And still without shaking.

In the appointed time — all according to a rigid, infallible inner plan — the poison is finished, and primed for use, and Corvus Cadash dons his mask, wrought from black-coated metal with silver accents and bearing the sharp curved beak of a carrion bid. He has a soirée to attend.

It is not often than a dwarf finds themself invited to mingle with the cream of Orlais' often dubious crop. But since the crop is, indeed, dubious, and the human nobles tend to need a lot of money to hammer gilded patches into the rotting scaffolding that holds together their ancestral dignity (and often, their literal decrepit estates) — money that Corvus is ready to provide, with substantial interest — he often gets written in on the guest list. As the 'plus one' of some fluttering, vaguely human-shaped cocoon of many-layered frills and ruffles, desperate for a handful of sovereigns to return a gambling debt, or add a last-minute, face-saving polish to a tarnished Chevalier's cuirass before a jousting match, or grease some palms at the magistrate's office so that Cousin Bertie does not go to jail for another one of his escapades.

That's not the case tonight, though. Bastien de Ghislain is... Not a friend, no. Corvus does not have friends. He would not have gotten this far if he did.

He has subordinates, some more trusted than others — like Malinka, whom he trained personally, what with both her parents gone, and Jarvi, whose talent he would be loath to see go to waste. And he has people whom he helps free of charge — like Gwineth and her kin. And he also has... associates. Of various degrees of usefulness.

Bastien proved useful — in the past, at least, and Corvus respects that, even though the human's health has been declining lately, and he has been growing more and more reclusive. You can't really do much business with a recluse, but their history is good enough for Corvus to overlook that. For now.

Corvus first crossed paths with him when they were both much younger. Bastien had decided to run away from home to become a bard, and turned out to be surprisingly good at it, for a spoiled human brat. Corvus taught him a few tricks, and he confided in him where some of his fellow nobles kept their heirlooms. Including those that had nothing to do with human heritage: artefacts they'd taken from elves.

He has continued to confide in him even after returning from the world of duels in moonlit alleys and leaps into shrubbery from building windows to the world of stilted conversations and prim and proper balls.

The two of them, Bastien and Corvus, would often people-watch at the famous de Ghislain musical salons, co-hosted by Bastien's wife and paramour — both admirable women, but he rather prefers dealing with the latter. She has a steely core within her that Corvus rather... values.

If a guest of such a salon happened to have an 'elven antique' in their collection, chances were, they would be deprived of it soon after. One of young Jarvi's creations would take its place, and the original would be taken far, far out of human reach. Somewhere where it could be studied, and preserved, and used for its intended purpose (which seldom comes anywhere close to propping up human books and doors or adorning their mantelpieces).

And even now, when Bastien more often than not locks himself away in his chambers, no longer the slyly winking young rogue that never stopped bantering, even with a dagger at his throat — even now, Corvus always accepts invitations to his château.

If nothing else, he has plenty of quips to exchange with Madame Vivienne, Bastien's paramour and the sole remaining matriarch of the household, now that Duchess de Chislain has died from a fever. Plenty of tiny sandwiches to nibble on. Plenty of people to meet.

Like this judge that caught his gaze almost the instant he said his hellos and settled on a sofa, ready for a servant to glide by with a tiny sandwich tray. The man has always been so easy to recognize, with that ridiculous lopsided beret of his. Corvus knew he'd be here. He's been counting on it.

The judge's beady eyes glint through the slits of his mask — hungrily, almost — and Corvus returns his meaningful, persistent looks with a clear, unyielding stare of his own. The judge fidgets uncomfortably for a moment, as if a loose spring in his seat has stabbed him in a place most shameful. But presently, he gets up, heading for one of the little side rooms, jerking his head to beckon Corvus after him.

Corvus follows, quickly snatching the tiniest morsel of bread and olive and rolled—up ham slice along the way. The murmurs of conversation and the babble of the indoor fountain fade away in his wake, and then are cut off completely when the side room's door snaps shut.

The judge breaks the silence with a very pointed cough.

'Did you receive my little notebook, Messere?' he asks, with a drawl of the fakest sweetness that Corvus has ever heard. 'Surely, all these observations of mine... Notes of your underlings — and yourself — being involved in the most sordid activity... Surely, they are all the result of a misunderstanding that we can resolve in a quick, amicable fashion?'

'My people and I all have alibis,' Corvus counters calmly, before handing the judge a small but thickly bound journal, with wavy, bulging pages as if it had recently gotten wet.

'I wrote them all down next to your notes. See for yourself'.

With a bemused 'Oh?', the judge opens the journal and attempts to flip through it... Which proves unexpectedly challenging, as the pages are lumped together, a sticky residue glistening along their edges.

'Créateur, man, have you spilled ale over this?!' the judge exclaims in frustration, in the middle of pulling down one of his velvet gloves and sucking at his index and middle fingers. His wet fingertips finally rip the pages apart — but he finds no records of alibis. Page after heavily turning page, there is nothing but his own tightly packed, fence—like handwriting, slightly blurred around the edges.

The beady eyes under the mask blink, straining to make out any detail they might have missed. Then, they blink again, and again, turning glazed and unfocused while Corvus' are clear as ever. Watching.

'The room has started spinning, hasn't it?' he asks sympathetically. 'Don't worry, it will pass soon. It will all pass. And then, my associates and I will finally be rid of your annoying attempts at blackmail'.

The judge chokes on a half-formed, moaning question... And then gargles, and heaves to the side, and thuds frozen to the floor. Just like Snapper Cadash did, twenty-seven years ago.

'Well, that was a fitting end to this maggot,' a melodic female voice comments from the doorway.

'He was as corrupt as the Waking Sea is deep. I know many people, good people, who will breathe easier for his passing. But you do realize, darling, that you will have to clean up after yourself? I am expecting an important guest, and I do not want her to arrive in the middle of a scandal'.

'My lady,' Corvus looks away from the corpse to bow at Madame Vivienne, who has manifested out of thin sir — perhaps quite literally, as she is a mage, after all — with her hand on her hip and one corner of her mouth slanting up.

'My lady, you have known me long enough to trust me to dispose of a body'.

'I would have placed more trust in you if you had done the deed anywhere other than my house. That is rather rude, darling,' Vivienne says, pursing her lips slightly.

'But I will have to let it slide, I suppose, for Bastien's sake. He would never forgive me if I barred you from our soirées. And you do make for a charming conversationalist. Do what you must...'

She snaps her fingers, and at her command, a turquoise light traces the edges of the carpet on the floor. After it recoils from the place where the judge lies, snapping up into a neat roll, she adds one final remark,

'Just be mindful of the furniture’.

With an elegant twist on her gilded high heels, she vanishes again, and Corvus sets to work on the corpse. He has another poison prepared for that. A dense, acidic solution, which bubbles and smokes as it eats up the judge, and then evaporates into a lingering green cloud, leaving behind only the tip of a feather from his ridiculous beret.

Corvus picks it up, with idle amusement, and tosses it into the fireplace, together with the little journal.

Yet again, his hands never shake. And by the time the toxic cloud dissolves, carried off through the half-open window, and the last of the poisoned pages turn to curling black flakes, red and gold around the edges, he almost feels like yawning.

Over twenty-seven years, this has become a routine.

'The Inquisition! What a load of pig shit! A bunch of washed-up sisters and crazed Seekers!'

He has opened the door a crack, now that there is nothing of interest left in the room — and his ears catch the drift of a mocking voice, floating up from the entrance parlour downstairs. A few more insults follow, before being cut short by the crackle of ice magic.

Wondering if this is somehow related to the guest Vivienne has been expecting — it would stand to reason that a woman as shrewd as her would inquire about the Inquisition — Corvus leaves the side room behind steps softly towards the top of the grand stairwell. From where he stands, shrouded by shadow, blending in with the assorted marble statuary, he can clearly make out Vivienne, floating down the steps with a swan-like grace, a flurry of conjured snowflakes slipping in and out through the grasp of her elegantly raised-up hand.

Shifting his gaze past her shoulder, to the bottom of the steps, Corvus spots the man that Vivienne has frozen... To the death or not, he wonders, edging closer to the carved railing. Whatever the case, the ice-cast form is standing upright, one hand reaching towards a dagger — which the man apparently intended to raise against...

Against...

Exhaling with a hiss through his teeth, Corvus grips the stair railing so tightly that his fingers begin to ache. It can't be; his sight must be growing worse with age...

No. He knows that his sight is just fine. And he knows who that is, down there, hovering apologetically before Vivienne, blurting out a hasty 'Set him free, please!' when asked, in a gracious, genuinely warm tone, what she wants Vivienne to do with this 'foolish, foolish man'.

It's Otrada. Otrada! Older, greyer, with paler scars than her remembers — but unmistakably herself. Even after twenty-seven years.

The poor duster is stuffed inside a brand-new, stiffly fitting uniform with the flaming eye crest, and her left fist is clasped tightly around something... green and glowing.

Wait — so she is the one? The one that humans can't shut up about? The Inquisition's bravest hero — or most vile heretic, depending on whom you eavesdrop... The Herald of Andraste.

Suddenly, Corvus feels an overwhelming impulse to lurch forward, to make himself known, to ask Otrada how she made it to the surface... Where she has been all these years... Whether or not she's met Malinka — who, as he already knows, has decided to join the Inquisition — and whether or not she's realized that it's her daughter, her baby from the bloodied crib... A baby that he hid, standing and watching through that sodding keyhole, instead rushing in and taking her side against Snapper. Right there. Head-on.

That last thought leaves him numb, as if he himself had just been poisoned. And, inhaling again, he slips back, further into the shadows.

Like the coward he's always been.


	6. Final Failure

Stumbling and falling and getting up again, on scabby-kneed, shaky legs, the child races through the wheat field, away, away from the creature that's pursuing them.

The wheat is tall: so tall that sometimes all that's visible is the child's head. A round ball of matted, sun-bleached fuzz bobbing up and down on the golden waves. But the creature is much, much taller. It towers above the rippling wheat, pursuing the child in gigantic strides, with a loud creak of its knobby, spiky joints.

It slipped from the Fade into the husk of a scarecrow — a lone black dot amid the gold of the Redcliffe farms. But it has since outgrown its host, bursting out of it as if it were some manner of nightmarish egg sac.

All that remains of the scarecrow is a snatch of torn burlap, stretched out over the creature's upper body. The rags quiver in place every time the creature shrieks: for its mouth is so enormous that it reaches from its head to its stomach; a narrow chasm lined with a neat row of tiny, razor-sharp teeth.

The scarecrow's pumpkin head still rests above the creature's spindly neck (the neck is full of teeth as well).

The triangular eye holes were carved by the merry hand of Seanna, Master Dennet's daughter on a lazy afternoon, full of vibrant, honey-tinted light — while a curious horse poked her head over Seanna's shoulder, snorting loudly and trying to take a munch out of the pumpkin. Now, though, these slits on the pumpkin's once-friendly face burn with an acid-green Fade fire, which trails after it in long, twisting ribbons while the creature runs on. On and on, trampling the wheat under its claws. Ready to grab. To feast.

The child stumbles one last time, but finds no strength to get up — instead, all of it goes into a loud, desperate, pleading sob. The creature reaches down, the teeth in its stomach grinding against one another in anticipation... And then, a crossbow bolt zooms through the air, hitting the pumpkin with a dry crunch. The hollow bright-orange shell falls apart, revealing the creature's actual head, tiny and green and shaped like a droplet of poison.

It turns around, the child forgotten, and scans the wheat waves furiously with its numerous burning eyes. A second bolt grazes its neck, and a teasing voice from somewhere underfoot dares it to 'Eat dirt!'.

The creature turns around, still searching, dark-green blood oozing down the side of its... face?

But before it can take another step, a ray of blinding golden light, fluid and flexible like a whip in a master wrangler's hand, shoots forward and wraps itself around its leg. Unlike the crossbow's wielder, the one who commands the light is easier to detect — she is do much taller. Crowned by a half-moon headdress, she stands firm and unyielding, not a speck of dirt on her billowing, embroidered coat tails — even though she must have made quite a trek through the fields to catch up with the creature.

She measures her adversary with an unimpressed gaze... And yanks at her glowing whip with such force that she topples the creature down. It lands on its knees with a shriek that sends a shock wave through the whole field, the wheat bending to form circles like ripples from a stone tossed into a pond. This exposes the figure of the assailant that shot at the creature with a crossbow: a dwarf with chest hair growing as densely as the wheat crop around him.

He watches the creature fall with an intent, inspired look, as if he were mentally recoding this scene for some future purpose. Digging his heels in, he weathers the shock wave — and then gives a thumbs-up to another dwarf, a young woman wielding twin daggers.

She is standing next to a Qunari warrior almost thrice her size — yet together, the grey horned colossus and the petite rogue act as a single whole. The Qunari bends his knee, lowering himself into the wheat and hunching his bare back like a bounder, and the dwarf flexes her shoulder, races up the grey, scar-slashed slope... And leaps.

The momentum she gained brings her down at the pinned-down, writhing creature with a tremendous force. After freezing in mid-air for a split second, a stocky silhouette against the enormous early afternoon sun, she plummets, daggers forward, and with a few whirlwind slashes, severs the creature's limbs.

It lurches in agony, as its arms and legs fall beside it, wriggling like malformed caterpillars... Before, seconds later, both the limbs and the tethered body dissolve into bubbling black too, the same green trails rising up from them as from the pumpkin's eye slits.

A little way behind them all, in the direction where the child came running from, there is a rift in the fabric of the sky. Like a defect in theatre scenery, coils of green peeking in from the other side. It funnels the glowing vapours from the creature's remains, like supernatural vent. Once it is done, the time comes for the last member of the little group that came to the child's rescue.

Her Ladyship Otrada Cadash, the Herald of Andraste. So whisper the farmers that have gathered to watch on the edges of the field, clinging to each other, terrified but ever so curious.

She stumbles through the wheat almost as awkwardly as the child before her, the razor—like edges of the broken stalks slicing at her shins. She carries a quarterstaff — a weapon she says she learned to use while helping the actors practice for a play at an Orlesian theatre, where she worked before the Maker's Bride called her to glory. She relies on it rarely, though, her movements fumbling and uncertain. But then again, this is not the skill people expect her to use.

She stands on tiptoe underneath the rift and raise up her left arm, fingers spread out. The scar across her gloveless palm — Andraste's holy Mark, the farmers whisper — erupts with a green burst, making her wince. Still, she does not move until the burst gives way to a dazzling magical beam, not unlike her human companion's magic whip. It reaches the rift, and moulds with it, and, in another burst, wipes it off the face of the sky.

It is blue again, and serene. The job is done, and the child gets up from the dirt and runs to their mother, who has stepped out of the watchful crowd, arms extended.

...When the two of them meet, and stagger and spin in a half-dazed hug, they do not know of the pain that churns in the Lady Herald's heart when she watches them.

And she would rather they did not know at all.

She is ashamed of the pain, and tries so hard to push it down, her fists clenched to the point on bleeding half-moons in her palms. But still, it rears its head, ripping and pulling at her insides till she can scarcely breathe.

It's not... Not jealousy, exactly. Jealousy would have meant that she wished the mother and child harm for having what she never will. It's more like a persistent, gut-punching reminder that this could have been her, but she proved to be unworthy.

She ran away too soon. She didn't stop and think that the whole display with the broken crib and the blood could have been one of her husband's disgusting pranks. That he hadn't really killed their daughter for crying to loudly. That he just wanted to get a rise out of her, like he always did, when he told her he'd thrown her painting tools down the privy, only to gift her a set of new ones after she crawled out, stinking and shivering and humiliated, from trying to fish them out.

Looking back now, with all her experience as a theatre prop maker, it all seems so obvious. A scene, set up with her as audience.

How could she have missed it? How could she have abandoned her child like that? How could she have been so stupid?

…Perhaps it would have been better if she had remained ambling about in her stupidity, thinking that her baby was dead. But no, the Maker, or whoever it was responsible for shaping her fate (certainly not the Stone; she is worthless to the Stone now) decided to bring Malinka back into her life. Crashing through her roof in the middle of a guard chase, like a sodding deus ex machina.

As the young rogue introduced herself back then, begging for help with escaping the guards, it did not take long for Otrada to deduce who she was.

Her name, the fact that she kept mentioning Corvus — her husband's sullen, silent right hand, with that frighteningly piercing pale stare, and now apparently the new leader of their Carta clan... It all fit together.

But even though the gears clicked in her head, draining her face of colour and her legs of strength (so that she sank onto one of her clutter piles, and it was Malinka's turn to fuss over her)... She did not tell her. She never will. She can't.

Because in truth, she is no mother of Malinka's. She has no right to call herself that, to even think she can ever be that.

She forfeited that right long ago, by fleeing to the surface and leaving Malinka to the Carta. By failing her.

And if she had any sense left, any willpower, any bloody dignity, she should have pushed Malinka away, once and for all.

She should have helped her that one time, and then let her go, let her vanish into the night, stranger to her, like she herself has been to Malinka all these years.

...But Malinka — she... She has been just so... friendly.

So unabashedly delighted to try out all the disguises Otrada crafted for her heists: a (deceptively) simple tavern wench in a faded—pink corset and with two deliberately garish circles of rouge on her cheeks; a little old lady with several layers of shawls and a walking stick that hides a dagger; a human boy in an oversized cap and torn—up suspender pants with conveniently enormous pockets; a wandering drunk wrapped in a trailing, grimy coat, with their face hidden by a bushy fake beard; a servant, a fish wife, even a Chantry mother (with stilts tucked under the long white robe, to imitate a human's height).

So grateful every time Otrada helped her, fed her, let her and an occasional fellow Carta member like Jarvi stay the night.

So interested in the daily goings-on of Otrada herself, in her props and smoke vials and endless stacks of paintings-in-progress. So determined to help her wade through the confusing, treacherous mire of relationships, clearly not meant to be navigated by a broken-nosed theatre weirdo on the twilight side of forty, whose most memorable love life experience was being tormented by her husband.

Otrada has been left too overwhelmed. She's had too little time to muster the determination needed to cut Malinka off — in between the rogue's continued visits, and excited stories about yet another successful mission for Corvus, and offers to set Otrada up with this or that 'perfectly gorgeous' someone (The latter have continued well into their travels with the Inquisition; Malinka's suggestions have ranged from Seeker Pentaghast and Commander Cullen to Gwineth and her mother Moira, who's recently arrived in Haven and is closer to Otrada in age).

And so, they keep going about like this. Malinka, happily convinced that she has made an amazing friend; and Otrada, screaming at herself on the inside to stop, stop, stop lingering in her life. She is trespassing here. She had her chance to be a proper mother — like that sniffling, chattering farmer who can't stop thanking the Inquisition for saving her child. But she chose to shut that door behind her — so how dare she scrape against it like a stray cat, trying time and again to snatch off scraps that are not meant for her. Never meant for her.

'Malinka darling, do take better care when you dip your daggers in poison,' Vivienne's voice floats out of some void around Otrada.

'After such effort to rid these farms of demons and bandits and possessed wolves, we cannot ruin it all by killing their crops'.

Otrada blinks through her pain and glances down to discover that she is standing in the middle of a blackened circle of wilted wheat. It looks different than the tracks left by the demon, or by their own footfalls. As if all life has been sapped out of it. Malinka comes over to inspect it too, head cocked to the side.

'I didn't even notice! I'll be more careful next time!' she says — and then they leave. There is still so much work to do, so much influence to carve out before they can even hope to resolve the ever-broiling conflict between mages and templars, and then close the Breach.

And every step of the journey, whenever Malinka tags along to help, Otrada glances back at her, and that same pain sinks its claws into her, and yanks forcefully downwards. As though it were a cat, and her heart and soul were a pair of curtains.

She watches Malinka leap on the back of a massive flock patriarch of a ram, grabbing his horns from behind before bringing him down to the sound of Bull's delighted whoops — a whole feast for the hungry refugees at the Crossroads.

And unshed tears boil within her, as she takes a few impulsive steps forward, ready to rush in and help, and then feels guilty for her impulse. Who does she think she is, she berates herself furiously, pulling her coat's collar over her face and then starting a little when a spark from the fabric (it has to be) suddenly stings at her.

During a brief reprieve from adventuring, she hovers about, sticking out like a sore thumb amid the snowbanks hugging the frozen lake in Haven. She is utterly disgusted with herself for spying — and still cannot stop observing lively conversations between the three women on a nearby pier. Malinka, Gwineth, and Moira.

Oh Moira. At long last, Otrada brings herself to tear her eyes off the imposing figure of the older Dalish, head dipped in shame — and begins walking away... Which proves oddly difficult, as a crust of ice seems to have glazed over her boots, holding her in place. She frees herself with a few furious kicks, and waddles off, with an entire lecture playing out in her head.

That elf, scarred and strong and always fresh from the hunt, is a proper mother. A true mother. She never abandoned her child; she carried her, through fire and pain, to the safety of the Dalish woodlands. Otrada cannot compare to that. She does not even deserve to stand beside Moira. To breathe the same air.

Even when she closes her eyes, in her bed in Haven, or in a bedroll out in the wilds, she is no longer cradled by comforting blackness. Because of the Mark, she has started having... Dreams, Solas calls them. Pictures in her head, formed out of the fumes of the Fade. Like that demonic likeness of her husband that chased her before she met the glowing woman that everyone is calling Andraste.

And her dreams, too, are echoing the same pain. Twins of Malinka, in all her disguises, circle around her, and cry and spit and call out to her angrily: a multitude of faces twisting through flaking, tear-streaked makeup.

'How could you?' asks the wench and the vagabond and the Chantry mother.

'How could you do this to me? First, you toss me aside like a toy you're bored of, and go live your merry life on the surface — and now, you try to eel back in? I'd stab you for your treachery, but I don't want to sully my daggers. They were a gift from Corvus. At least he was there for me!'

When Otrada wakes up, panting heavily, her fingers claw at the bedsheets, finding odd holes with brittle, blackened edges, as if someone had dropped hot coals over the fabric, burning holes through it. She does not know where the holes keep coming from, nor does she care. Curling up into a fetal pose, she slips back into the Fade — and the next day, it all begins again.

...Until the Inquisition's wanderings finally bear fruit. Their presence gets noticed, and they amass enough force to approach Redcliffe Castle, which has been taken over by Tevinters. Not mere slavers, as they now know. A cult, serving someone — or something; Otrada has at this point seen enough monstrosities to readily accept that it's another demon — called the Elder One.

At this Elder One's command, one of the cultists unleashes a whirlpool of dark magic, which sucks in Otrada and that helpful young Tevinter mage that is working against the cult (and carries himself a bit like an actor). It tears them out of the firelit warmth of the castle's throne room, the brightly threaded tapestries and toothy mabari carvings blending before their eyes into a dappled spiral... And then, spits them out into a new version of the castle, one year into the future. Changed, from foundation to roof... Though it is hard to even find these now.

In Otrada's absence, and with the Elder One at the reins like the cult planned, the breach has taken up the whole sky, eating away at the world beneath it with an undying hunger.

The castle has been ravaged by countless eruptions of raw Fade energy, and attacks from demons — like that chase in the wheat field, except every minute of every hour, for three hundred-odd days. The stone has caved and crumbled; the grinning wooden mabari lie sideways, scarred by claw marks, with their comically bulging eyes gouged out and turned into a mess of charred splinters by blasts of magic.

Sometimes, the floor opens into bottomless chasms where Fade energy swirls into slurping green clots — and sometimes, chunks of broken wood beams and crumbs of chipped-off rock tear away from the roof and float upwards, into the maw of the breach.

And like dripping red meat slivers that still cling on to torn-up carrion, there are red crystals everywhere. Just like the ones at the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

They throb with suffocating heat to the rhythm of a feverish heartbeat, leaving you drained and dazes if you come too close. Every inch of their many-faceted, ruby-like surface seems to a radiate a vague yet overpowering malice, as if there were something locked away within their core — something infected, and aggressive, and alive.

And they keep growing, ever growing, out of the castle's carcass. Out of the walls, the floor, the ceiling; and most horrifically of all, out of people. The dead, who lie contorted in frozen agony, all around the abandoned rooms — some of them even in Tevinter cultist clothing, for this addled world no longer discriminates between who bows to its lord, and who does not. And the yet living.

In all of her research of body horror for designing monster costumes, Otrada could never have imagined something so grotesque — and so heart-wrenching. As they explore the castle dungeons, with a fair share of confusion and ever so persistent panic (at least in Otrada's case), she and the actor-like Tevinter, Dorian, unlock cell after cell, letting out... Beings that were once companions that Otrada took with her to Redcliffe Castle. Vivienne, whose skill in the human Game she hoped to call on when dealing with the cultists; and the Seeker, who was there to speak for the Inquisition.

Both women resemble their former selves only when they stand against the green light and turn into featureless silhouettes. But the moment the lighting shifts, it becomes apparent what the Elder One has had his — its? — servants do to them.

Like all prisoners — here in the castle and, as Otrada learns with an unseen cold fist squeezing her heart, all over the rest of Ferelden and Orlais, and other nations too — they have been left exposed to those vile pulsing growths. The crystals are steadily consuming them from within. Coating their arms in sharp ruby scales, like a vicious rash. Locking their throats in crystalline collars, so that their voices come out warped and echoing, as if from the bottom of a well. Breaking through the delicate, bruised skin under their eyes to form an ingrown mask.

And then there's Leliana. The Inquisition's all-seeing Spymaster.

Her grey-blue eyes still watch, and assess, and judge with the same razor-sharp, ice-cold focus — a little bit like Corvus', really (maybe that's why Otrada is so afraid of her). But her porcelain pallor — deceptively tender, for a woman who has been guiding so many hands with bared blades for so long — has been turned to corpse-like grey, strings of dry flesh clinging tight to steep, pointy cheekbones.

None of the three have much time left. They follow Otrada — who keeps glancing back at them, nauseated and on the verge of a very, very ugly sob — and Dorian with a grim determination to fight to the last, so that the two stranded wanderers from a better past might reverse the spell that created this nightmare of a world.

They are almost at their final destination — the corrupted throne room, where the cultist responsible for the spell, Dorian's former mentor, has locked himself away, terrified of what his own magic has wrought — when they come across a group of cultists, gathered round what appears to be a corpse. Yet another one. Taken over almost completely by the parasitic crystals.

They do not spot Otrada and the others right away, allowing for a (somewhat) stealthy approach from behind. But they have not closed ranks entirely, and through the gaps between their robed backs, Otrada can make out some of the corpse's features.

...It's Malinka.

Malinka, who, in Otrada's version of the timelinr, only just recently sat at the campfire, exchanging banter with Varric and The Iron Bull at the speed of a shooting crossbow... Dead. Warped beyond all that's natural, by the crystal growths what have ripped up her stomach, and fused her fingers together into spiky bulbs like bloodied morning-stars, and made her chest cave in, red and mangled, crushing her heart and lungs till all life bled out of her.

The only thing that still remains remotely recognizable is her face. A snatch of pale skin, framed by red spikes. The face that once looked up, tiny and round, with gleaming, trusting green eyes out of a crib; the face that, reshaped by the passing of years, grinned cheekily at Otrada, the person Malinka considered a friend, only just recently... Only just yesterday.

Except it wasn't yesterday. Not for all these poor, tortured people. Not for Malinka.

Leliana has been reminding Otrada and Dorian of that, now and again.

_It's all just pretend for you. Some future you hope will never exist. I suffered. The whole world suffered. It was real._

In this timeline, in this waking nightmare, Otrada abandoned the people who thought she was the chosen of the human prophet; who trusted her to fix everything. She abandoned her daughter — again. This — this was her final failure.

No... No, wait. These words — she's seen them before. Scribbled all over again on snatches of paper she and Dorian have been finding all over the castle. Sometimes blotted out with ink that fell from a shaking quill, or with the grey, watery marks of tears, or with what could well have been blood.

The journals of the cultist — the magister who cast this spell. He did not mean for this to happen, the shaky notes screamed again and again. He did not mean for the world to turn red. All he ever wanted was to adjust the flow of time, so he could... So he could save his son. A son whom he failed, again and again and again.

But he did not stop trying, did he? Even as everything collapsed round him, even as his attempts to fix mistakes lead to even worse mistakes, much larger, much more monstrous, like that demon bursting out of the scarecrow. Even then, he did not stop trying. Because, from what Otrada has seen in his half-delirious journal scraps, that mad mage loves his son.

And she loves Malinka. She always did, from the moment those huge innocent eyes found her gaze for the first time. It doesn't matter to Malinka, it shouldn't — and Otrada knows that she is not entitled to being loved in return. But it matters to her; and she will not stop trying. To be a friend to Malinka, at least. To protect her. To make sure that she's happy.

She will put her trust in Dorian, and see to it that he reverses his old mentor's spell, and the world is restored to a place of blue skies and sunlight and golden wheat, where Malinka, and all the others, will walk free again, whole and untouched by the red infection.

She...

'Kaffas, woman, what was that?!'

Dorian's voice, loud and bewildered, dispels the thoughts that have been brewing in her mind like Fade clouds, blocking out the rest of reality. Otrada wipes her stinging eyes — and realizes that she has sunk to her knees... And that the pain that has been haunting her for so long has finally released its clutches.

There are spikes, rising all around her, erupting out of the cracked floor and nearly piercing the ceiling (or what's left of it). They are not red, though: they are white, touched by feathery swirls in several shades of blue, like the still, frozen waters of the Haven lake. And from their tips, hang the bodies of the Tevinter cultists, turned into blood-soaked rags when their chests caved in. Red and mangled like Malinka's.

'Did... Did you do this?' Otrada asks, staggering to her feet. 'Or did Vivienne?'

Dorian gapes at her as though she had grown a second head.

'No. You did'.


	7. Seeking A Teacher

'Well, the countryside is certainly charming,' says Dorian, plucking a twig out of his hair with his little finger demonstratively extended.

'First, I had to camp out in the wilderness around Redcliffe, waiting for you to show up. Now, I am camping out in even more wilderness. Truly a penance for my countrymen's grave sins'.

With great care not to smear any moss over his robes, he perches on the rotting log where Otrada is sitting, and gives her a long look that makes it abundantly clear that he is not actually here to talk about his past misadventures.

This is the first time that they are having a conversation one on one, ever since their foray into what they've both started calling 'the Dark Future'. The Inquisition had to leave Redcliffe in a hurry, after all.

Hardly had Otrada fallen head-first out of the new time vortex, conjured by Dorian this time, and taken a dazed look at the people in the throne room, alive and safe and with not the faintest memory of cursed crystals gnawing all their life force away — all of them, Cassandra and Vivienne and Malinka, Malinka, Malinka — when the throne room's carved wooden pillars shook with the sound of fanfare and the baying of hounds and the heavy steps of steel boots.

The King of Ferelden had arrived to help his subjects, with a troupe of soldiers behind him and with the arl of Redcliffe by his side, red-faced and incessantly gesturing in indignation. Neither of them was too pleased to know that this hapless town, already scarred by the rising of the dead ten years ago, had nearly been taken over by a cult from Tevinter.

So off they were shooed, the rebel mages and the Inquisition alike. The king might have literally said 'Shoo!' unless Otrada misheard him.

They are now making their way back to Haven: an endless caravan stretching atop the Hinterland hills like beads on a Chanter's rosary. The Inquisition representatives are marching up front, but it will be many days before everyone catches up and settles in; before Josephine finalizes their new alliance with Grand Enchanter Fiona; and before they can finally set out to work together to seal the breach.

Dorian declared that he wanted to be there, and much as Seeker Cassandra glared at him in distrust, he has so far shown no intention to turn back home.

And now that the caravan has stopped to rest for the night, and Otrada has been given the first watch, it's his chance to properly talk to her out of earshot.

'Outdoor delights aside,' he says after a pause, 'Have you told the others yet? That you are a mage? I suspect they have no memory of your little display in the Dark Future.'

Otrada stares at her hands. As always, it feels wrong to talk to another person about her feelings; like she is imposing, taking up too much space... But facing a living nightmare together rather helps bring down certain walls.

'I haven't. I... I am still coming to terms with it. I've had... A confusing couple of days. First the cultists, then time travel... Then I see my... my companions die... Then I start shooting ice spikes out of my fingers'.

A thread-thin flare of green light seeps through her skin, and then fades.

'Now that I look back, I think it started even earlier. Before the Dark Future,' she goes on.

'Odd things just kept happening around me: plants wilted where I stood; a frost crust just... sprang up round my feet; my fingers burned holes through the bed sheets while I slept... All because of the Mark; it has to be'.

'How does that make you feel?' Dorian asks, craning his neck for a closer look at Otrada's hand. Even without meeting his eyes, she can guess that he is speaking through an eager, expectant smile. She must be quite a fascinating anomaly to study; well, at least she is not taking up space entirely for nothing.

'Being the world's only dwarf that can cast magic?'

She thinks, peering deep inside herself — and finally turns her head to look at Dorian.

'Frightened,' she blurts out, hoping — nearly begging — frantically that her answer does not disappoint him.

'I have no idea what else I can do, or how to... control myself'.

'Ah'.

Dorian places his palm behind his ear, listening for something... Or pretending to: his actor—like demeanor is back again.

'I hear the swoosh—swoosh of the clubs wielded by southern Chantry barbarians'.

His mocking expression turns more serious. Sincere. Sombre even, in the quiet of the night.

'Forget the nonsense you've been hearing from them. Magic is not some sort of... lycanthropy that turns you into an unhinged monster. It's a skill, like any other. A skill you can excel at, with enough practice. Not as much as I excelled, probably — I have a natural talent few can match — but it beats just sitting on your hands and pretending you a regular dwarf, when you are clearly not. Not any more'.

'Do you think... you might teach me?' Otrada asks, glancing nervously at the golden circle of light from the campfire.

'Maybe once I am more confident in my... skill, I will be ready to reveal my secret to everyone else'.

Dorian's eyes spark with barely contained glee.

'I could most certainly try!' he exclaims, more and more enthused with every word. His hands fly up, gesturing in time with his intonation — a habit that a lot of northerners seem to have.

'Now, being a dwarf, you probably would not know that the Veil is not a veil in a physical sense, but rather a vibration, and the key to magic is to attune oneself to this vibration, and...'

He talks on and on, at one point even grabbing a twig to try and draw a diagram on the ground. Otrada tries to keep up diligently, and tentatively mirrors a few of his gestures, not quite certain if he is demonstrating spellcasting techniques or still just talking with his hands. But the more and more Tevene terminology slips into his speech, cumbersome and almost frightening to Otrada's southern ear, the further behind she falls.

His explanations blend into wordless mush, and her mind drifts to other sounds around them. The sigh—like swaying of treetops, distant snores from the tents, the hoots of some nocturnal bird... Anything but the lesson.

At long last, blushing from her ear tips to her throat, Otrada dares to interrupt him with the smallest of coughs, and says sheepishly,

'I don't follow'.

'What?' Dorian frowns slightly, taking some time to tune out of the sound of his own voice.

'I see. I got too advanced for you too fast, didn't I? I apologize; I do not exactly have the head for tutoring — not for tutoring beginners, at any rate. There are so many bare essentials that I probably skipped because I have been taking them for granted since the age of five. But maybe you could try another teacher. Provided that you would stomach entrusting your secret to one more person. It... It is difficult business, figuring out whom you can show parts of yourself to'.

A shadow glides across his face, but he makes a point to hide it, returning to cleaning twigs out of his hair. Even though there are not actually any twigs to be found.

Otrada takes a stick of her own and pokes the edge of Dorian's diagram, dejected.

'I already bother Solas too much, begging for explanations of the pictures I see in my head at night... And Lady Vivienne is going to be busy helping with our mage alliance... Gwineth is off doing something, too — rescuing elven refugees, with her mother and Warden Blackwall...'

'Actually, I had someone else in mind. Someone who, like me, did not get clobbered on the head by those figurative Chantry clubs. And has experience teaching mages of all ages and abilities. Not just my prodigious self'.

Knitting her eyebrows, Otrada lifts her head to look at the campsite again. Seeking out one particular tent, on the farthest edge of the light circle. The one that has guards posted outside, stiff as rocks, their armour swathed in ghostly silver glow in the twilight. 

The magister from Redcliffe is in there, chained into heavy manacles and restrained by several sturdy leather straps that press his arms tight against his body, preventing any and all attempts at spellcasting.

Otrada was there when the Inquisition bound him and took him away, by king's decree. The look on his face — blank and indifferent, as if his forehead had already been seared with the Chantry's bleeding sun brand, taking his emotions away — made her reel, like a knife was slashing through her gut. And it wasn't a pang of hatred. Even though she, in good consciousness, should have hated him.

He had been the main culprit responsible for the Dark Future — for her friends' torment, for her daughter's death in the clutches of parasitic red growths. But now that all of them stood right beside her, not a flake of red in sight, it was difficult to remember that she had to hate the magister. It still is.

Maybe it's just her being her weird old self again. She scarcely has enough willpower to hate her husband. She shudders in fear each time she remembers his heavy fists and froth-at-the-mouth insults and barking laughter at the sight of her tears. And tries to calm herself by recollecting that he is long dead, murdered by his own underling (probably in a bid for power within the Carta). This involuntary crawl down memory lane, which she goes through again and again when she least expects it, always leaves her too drained to hate anyone else.

Besides, the magister is not that different from her, deep down. He also has a child that he wants to protect at all cost — had, probably, at this point; the poor young man, Felix, was in the throes of sickness when he parted ways with the Inquisition. Pale-grey like the film of dry earth covering Dust Town streets, with black bruises around his eyes, which had bulging, feverishly pulsing veins radiating from them across his sunken cheeks.

So yes, when Otrada watched the magister's fall from grace, that knife-sharp pang was one of pity, not hatred. And the same pity creeps up on her when she locks her eyes on the guarded tent. She lets a sigh escape her lips, and Dorian guesses that she knows who he's talking about.

'I know he tried to kill you — to kill us all. I am asking a lot from you by suggesting you trust him like this. Maker knows he does not deserve it. But he was one of the best teachers I knew... One of the best _people_ I knew. A man to I compared all others. Once — before all this bloody mess. And I...'

His voice cracks a little, and he kicks at the dirt, looking like he's irritated by his own display of emotion.

'I hope there's still a fraction of that teacher, that man, somewhere deep, deep down'.

'I will think about it,' Otrada tells him, with a faint reassuring smile. It probably comes off as refusing his, and she feels ill at ease when she has to do that. But she does mean it. She does want to properly think about it.

...Apparently, she thinks about it too hard. Because when Cassandra takes her turn to watch over the camp, and Otrada slips into her bedroll, the pictures in her head show her... 

The inside of the guarded tent. She can tell that from the two rigid shadowy figures that are visible through the canvas, seeping through it like black ink. Standing watch out there, ready to strike if the captive pokes his head out. She suspects that they should not really be visible, not in this kind of lighting — but this is a dream, after all. Dreams often get unsettling, she's found. Elves and humans and Qunari really deserve a reward for going through this every night, for years and years once birth.

The ever-present shadows — or the fact that she is intruding on the magister, even if in the Fade, even if he's her prisoner — are not even the most unsettling thing about this. It's the colours. Or rather, the lack of them.

Everything in here — from the tiniest crisscrossing fibers in the tent's fabric to the wispiest snatch of straw in the modest bedding on the ground — is tinted into shades of grey. As are Otrada's hands, when she raises them to her eyes in stunned bewilderment. Her skin tone is no brighter than Felix's Blight-ravaged flesh, and even the Mark is flickering a watered-down white instead of green.

The magister is there too. Though in the middle of Otrada's gawking at the grey guard shadows and at the grey soil and at the tent's grey, sagging underbelly, they almost don't notice each other.

He has also been dipped in this sickly greyness, head to toe. His sunken eyes were definitely brown back when Otrada felt that pang under his despondent gaze — but now, they are a dull, slate colour that matches his expression, and this entire dismal place.

The knife rips through her again. That's what this is all about, isn't it? His eyes. They stopped seeing meaning, light, colour in life — so the Fade all around the magister has changed to reflect that.

When he finally catches sight of her, as she of him, he exhales heavily.

'Hello again, Herald. I...'

His voice is tired and monotone, and his face is frozen into a grey mask, but at this moment, a tic of pain warps his features. Maybe his bindings are cutting in too tightly in the waking world; or maybe he, too, is feeling the same agonizing, stabbing jolts as Otrada. For his own reasons.

'I should not have called you a mistake. I am sorry for that; if anyone is a walking mistake, it's me. I know...'

He exhales again, sounding even more exhausted than before.

'I know this is not really you, and that the actual Herald could not care less for my apologies. Why should she? But I will still keep telling you that every time I see you. Little as it matters'.

Otrada makes a squeaky gasp — a failed attempt at finding her voice. Then, she tries again.

'Y-you think I am part of your dream, Messere? It's — it's actually me! I found you in the Fade — by sheer accident, I assure you! Because of the Mark... Which you think should have belonged to the Elder One,' she finishes with a frown.

No, brilliant as Dorian is, having the magister teach her to master the Mark's power was a terrible idea. That will only make him angry. Maybe she should go and bother Solas, after all.

...He does not get angry. Not in the frightening, violent way that she is used to, at least. Instead, he merely passes his lead-heavy hand slowly over his colourless face.

'The Elder One... I put too much faith in him. Another mistake. I was told about the future that he — I — created. Your insistence on opposing him is foolhardy, but at least it endangers far fewer people than my... zealotry. But wait —'

His forehead creases in intent thought, and Otrada can swear she sees a tiny speck of brown flicker in the lifeless grey of his eyes. She has gotten him interested, just like Dorian.

'Did you say you can now traverse the Fade? Experience dreams?'

'...And cast magic'.

The words come out before Otrada can even properly register them. The realization that she is not provoking any anger must have made her bold.

The brown speck grows, now taking up half of both magister's eyes. Forming twin copper crescents that contrast with the crescents of slate.

'The Mark has transformed you into a mage? Oh, Herald, you have no idea what a fascinating world awaits you! Magic offers so much to discover! So much to study! Did the Inquisition give you books to read? Tutors? Supplies to master your craft?'

He obviously does not get as enthusiastic as Dorian did, but he does not give off the impression that his whole body has been crushed in a rock fall either. Even his binds slowly melt away — in this dream, at least — and he takes to pacing around the tent, with an occasional emphatic gesture to punctuate his speech.

It looks... inexplicably endearing. Otrada remembers having days like this herself — well, not like this. Not literally. She has never made any attempts to destroy the world for Malinka's sake. But she did sometimes (usually when her husband’s face plastered itself against her brain, uninvited) crawl under a pile of any and all blanket-like fabrics she could find in her messy old attic room above the theatre… And lay quite still, her memories leeching on her like the Dark Future's red corruption till she had no strength to as much as turn her head.

It was up to her friends on days like that, helping her shale off that red cloud. Up to Malinka, bless her, and to young Magnus, an actor from the troupe, one of the few that remember Otrada's existence even when all the props and levers are in order and nothing needs fixing. They'd coax her into doing the simplest things, like getting up and throwing away last night's leftovers... And from that point on, things became easier. Not effortless, not straight away — but easier.

'Actually, Dorian is the only one who knows I'm a mage... Aside from you,' Otrada says softly, taking the opportunity to study the magister's face better, now that he is neither hostile or disturbingly emotionless.

It's a good face, she decides — knowing that she will be awfully terrified of her own bold judgement some time later. Even in black and white. It would look quite splendid as one of Jarvi's sculptures. The lack of colour even sort of... enhances that. The way the shadows frame his cheekbones...

She coughs.

'Dorian — he tried to teach me... But got in too much of a hurry to explain all the intricacies of advanced magic. So he suggested I ask someone with teaching experience'.

The magister stops in his tracks.

'Not me, surely? I... I thought I had butchered the last remnants of Dorian's respect... With my own hand'.

'If I may be so bold, Messere,' Otrada says diplomatically, 'I do not think he has forgiven you... But he keeps telling me that you were once a man to whom he compared all others'.

'I — '

He passes his hand over his face a second time, a shard of something sharp catching at his throat.

'I do not deserve this level of trust... But I could try to... to pretend that I am capable of earning it back. Until your Inquisition executes me, anyway'.

Otrada furtively presses her hand against her stomach. The knife thrust is more ferocious than ever before.

The magister, for his own part, soon turns from his grim remark to... lesson planning. 

'I suppose we shall have to keep doing this in the Fade, to avoid further complications. Seek me out next night, and I will show you what I know. And please — please do not call me Messere. You are not a child in my care; it will do us both much more good if we think of this as two adults sharing knowledge on equal terms. As equal as a prisoner and triumphant captor can be, I suppose'.

'I could try talking to Cassandra,' she suggests, in a small voice (for she knows that this would hardly help much). 'Maybe she could do something about those guards — and your shackles'.

'That would be needless. But it is a kind thought', he replies.

And when their eyes meet for one last time before Otrada wakes up, his are fully, deeply brown.


	8. A Touch Of Colour

During the day, they slog through the hours: slow and tedious and gruel-like, filled with nothing but marching on and on. Marching till the soles of their feet are nothing but watery sores, and even the prettiest green and golden and silver foothills around them turn into a dull blur. Across the Hinterlands and then up through the mountains, to where Haven lies, in the shadow of giant molten rock spikes that frame a deathly still, ashen crater — once the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

And when the march is over, the gruel is stirred into chaotic mess — for Her Worship Otrada Cadash, the Lady Herald, at least. Scarcely does she sit down for a little rest, a little reprieve for her sores, when she has to get up and dash off. More often than not, to several places at once.

The rebel mages await reassurance that the former Templars under the Inquisition's banner are not there to hurt them. A reassurance that Otrada herself is painfully familiar with — not the magic part, that one is recent (and not something she would ever fathom happening). The hurt part.

Josephine awaits her signatures on very official-looking documents, which she miraculously keeps neat and clean and perfectly pressed — despite often having to draft them over her knee, while visiting merchants and nobles poke their heads out of every nook and cranny, demanding an audience.

All of Otrada's numerous companions await visits from her, to exchange reports, and pass on requests for better gear in preparation for the assault on the breach... And sometimes (during very rare moments when their knees are not buckling under the weight of tasks to be done) to have a normal, friendly conversation.

While Otrada runs about, with a trail of paper sheets scattering after her, or potion bottles threatening to slip out of her grasp, or voices calling for her attention whenever she turns — her Tevinter prisoner is still floating about in the same gruel of empty monotony. He has far fewer things to do. Except sit still — first in a guarded tent, then in a cell underneath the Haven Chantry — and stare ahead, and sometimes poke wearily at the food that the guards bring him (the only occasion when his binds are loosened enough for him to move his hands).

Sometimes, the blob of mashed potato has a few grains of pepper lodged into it, with a note slipped under the guards' noses,

_This is the closest thing I could find to spice in this southern Void-hole. Malinka, the dwarf rogue that covered for me while I rummaged about, promised that she'd talk to her Carta contacts about procuring something more decent. She is friends with the Herald, I understand, and the Herald seems to find it very important that you get nice things. I do not know whether I should argue with her about this or not. For now — enjoy._

_D_

But all of that happens during the day. At the night, both during the march and the fuss that follows after, the Lady Herald and her prisoner seek each other out in the Fade, as they agreed.

The shared dream space where they meet — greeting each other first with a stiff awkwardness and later on, with more and more familiarity — is still awash with endless shades of grey.

'My fault,' the prisoner says apologetically. 'There is... little colour for me to see in the world, and the Fade responds rather keenly to this'.

She reassures him that it's all right, pushing through the guilt that always smothers her when she dares to have heart-to-heart conversations with people. And where his mind saps the Fade of colour, hers transforms the floating, vaguely rock-like chunks of nothingness into something very specific.

After a few moments, the two dreamers always find themselves standing on a stage in an empty theatre auditorium, facing countless rows of empty seats, which rise up along a never-ending slope till their grey contours blur into a distant haze.

On the first night when this happens, the prisoner looks about, astonishment and wonder seeping through his usual blank-faced weariness. His eyes — the only part of the dream that is not consumed by greyness — scan the massive canvas backdrop behind them, and all the ropes and levers and ladders that peek through the side curtains. As he takes it all in, warm, light-brown streaks thaw through the grey at the corners of his eyes, where his skin was once touched by the rays of long—forgotten smiles.

'What a curious place to dream of,' he muses — and Otrada, too, lights up.

'This is where I worked before I travelled to the Conclave. I designed scenery, and props, and...'

She shakes her head wistfully and comes closer to her fellow dreamer, brushing her fingertips over a grey cardboard shrub.

'...Funny. I used to imitate magic on-stage — make smoke flasks and glitter bombs and little machines that shot lighting if you turned a special crank really, really fast. Never thought I — a dwarf, of all people! — would be the one casting all the spells for real'.

The prisoner swerves to look at her. It could be the lighting in this black—and—white place, but somehow, his face looks far younger for a moment. Not as drained by age and worry and self—hate.

'Glitter bombs? Were you the one who created the special effects for that musical — the one with the ridiculous magister villain who sat on the crescent moon and sang his dramatic song while dangling his legs in striped stockings? I saw that play with... with my family. When I was visiting my son in Orlais'.

She gasps softly and reaches out for a reassuring touch.

She does it involuntarily, without thinking what they are here for, and how this man — even if he did volunteer to teach her magic — only just recently was her mortal enemy.

She almost leaps away when the realization how out of turn she is acting finally comes crashing down on her... But the prisoner — Alexius — does not flinch from her touch, and the spot just over his wrist where her fingers brushed against his skin now glows with colour, almost golden.

'I am sorry,' she half-whispers. 'This is probably a painful memory for you'.

'Yes,' he confesses, hanging his head — but not for long.

'Which does not take away from the fact that it was a beautiful play. Ridiculous magisters aside. You have quite the skill, Herald'.

'If I am not to call you Messere,' she says impulsively, even as her ears feel like they've sprung aflame. 'Then you are not to call me Herald'.

'Fair enough'. He quirks an eyebrow, studying her face... And when she lifts her arm to her eyes to see the reflection in her bracer (she always wears armour in dreams; this alien world feels less threatening this way) she realizes that her ears are not merely feeling flushed. They have actually turned crimson.

'Is Lady Cadash better? Shall we begin — Lady Cadash?'

'Yes, thank you very much, Lord Alexius!'

And they begin. And continue, night after night, dream after dream.

In slow, patient steps, he shows her spellcasting posture, the basics of breathing, of focusing, of reaching within for emotions that can help channel magic. They move across the grey stage like a pair of dancers, his hands guiding hers, his voice encouraging her every time a tiny tongue of magelight — dazzlingly purple against the black and white — twitches weakly in her grasp and frizzles away.

And sometimes, when they step on a particular board, the patterns of woodwork swirl under their soles, rich brown and dark red.

Sometimes, when a conjured wisp soars up from her open palm, raining green sparks over her awestruck, upturned face, it flutters towards the backdrop and melts into it, sprinkling fresh paint over the monochrome canvas.

Sometimes, when the teacher gazes upon his student — no, not quite student; an unlikely friend, with whom he shares his knowledge, just as she shares the ins and out of backstage life after they finish the lesson and before dawn breaks — a faint smile of pride touches the corners of his lips. And more and more colour returns to his face. His hands. The bright spot of clothing on his chest — over his heart.


End file.
